My greatgrandparents,William Armstrong from the parish of Bewcastle in Cumberland, and Agnes Armstrong(nee Armstrong) from the parish of Canonbie, were married at Gretna Green in 1870. I have a copy of the entry in the register.
I've found them on the 1881 census,living in Cumberland.There were no ages on the entry in the register.Can anyone help me to find Agnes's birth certificate.She gave her age as 28 in 1881.Would I have to wait for the 1861 census for Dumfrieshire to appear online? Any help appreciated.
Maureen
Maureen
If Agnes was 28 in 1881 that implies a year of birth of 1852/53 (or earlier if there was an element of massaging involved
).
((Picture the scene one evening when Wullie is struggling with the householder's census form, and consults his guid lady as regards the age that he should put down for her, - perchance, being an unusual male 
and sensitive to female attitudes towards age, he suggested "29", her reply being, -
"Haw Wullie!, Ah coodnae possibly say Ah wis 29
ErrorSPAM
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][she was actually, let's say, 32!][/color]
as awbuddy'll think Ah'm 30 or ower, sae jist pit doon 28"............[/b][/i]))
On the other hand, if she wanted to make herself look a wee bit older than reality, for whatever reason, then her birth record
might just have crept into the 1855+ records. Wha kens ?? :-
Statutory, i.e. civil registration of births didn't start in Scotland until 1855, so there won't be a "certificate" if that is the case.
If you are fortunate there may be an entry in the Old Parochial Register for Canonbie if Agnes was born there, or, possibly an adjoining parish, as there's no guarantee that she was born in that parish.
IGI only gives one matching Canonbie birth when searching on the basis of 1853 +/- 5 years, -
AGNES ARMSTRONG - International Genealogical Index
Gender: Female Christening: 28 JAN 1848 Canonbie, Dumfries, Scotland
(This is only one of 8 such matching records for the country of Dumfries.)
.... but the period from 1843 to 1854 is very problematic in Scotland deriving from
The Disruption, - the breakaway from the Established Church of Scotland by 40% of its ministers, and, according to various estimates, anything up to 60% of the communicants of the ECoS, to form The Free Kirk. The survival rate of Free Kirk records in its early years is not good.
In addition, in the decades of the 19th C up to 1855, more and more people, especially in the cities, didn't see the need to register births, and the ECoS was increasingly lax in terms of enforcing registration in the OPR. One 1820s survey in Glasgow, - a so-called Bill of Mortality, - found that nearly 50% of births went unrecorded.
The situation may well have been different in a rural parish such as Canonbie.
I'm not enough of an expert on the history of the Free Kirk to know if there were such dissenting congregations in Canonbie and surrounding parishes, but a look at the relevant parish entries in the New Statistical Account should quickly let you see if there were Free Kirk and/or other dissenting congregations..... http://edina.ac.uk/statacc/
If that source doesn't help then Groome's Gazetteer of the 1890s may help (always assuming that a dissenting congregation still existed to that date).
I hear that there's a meeting of the User Group of ScotlandsPeople this coming Monday, so it may be the case that the minutes of the meeting, whenever they are published at
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk , will clarify when the 1861 index and images will be available on the site.
(Note that the table showing availability dates on the site is not a commitment, but only an estimate, and has frequently been adjusted in the last few years, always, but always, 
, involving delays in availability, often yet further delays, of the dates for the availability of various records )ibi
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Topic: Gretna Green marriage 1870 (Read 1764 times)