Aberdeen city and those elusive EDWARDS baptisms!

[Gen List Lass]

This is a problem that I go back to regularly but it's good to shake the tree regularly!

William EDWARDS was born around 1824 in Aberdeen.
No baptism found!
He was apprenticed as a confectioner on the 1841 census at Littlejohn Street.
In 1843 he married at St Nicholas Aberdeen, ceremony performed by a Dissenting Clergyman Rev John Kennedy? No name of father given.
He was very young when he married and probably didn't finish his apprenticeship. The family took themselves off to Edinburgh then onwards to Newcastle upon Tyne where they stayed put.
None of their 7 children were baptised. Ive searched everything online for William or any of his childrens baptisms, Church of Scotland, C of E and non-Conformist in Newcastle. Nothing.

William's first child was called Fergus Fergusson EDWARDS. We thought he might have been named after Rev Fergus Fergusson an Episcopalian minister at St Pauls Aberdeen. So far I've reached a dead end on that one, Register House in Edinburgh know nothing about St Pauls records!

It has been surmised that Williams family was from a minor non-Conformist congregation of which there are no baptism records.....the trail goes cold.

BUT there are other EDWARDS men in Newcastle of the same age and born in Aberdeen who were baptised and they are sons of an Aberdonian, Simpson EDWARDS a grocer/provision dealer/beer retailer.

William Edwards the Elusive once gave his name as William Simpson EDWARDS and other times as William Philip EDWARDS. But as the children of Simpson EDWARDS on either side of Williams birth ARE baptised in Aberdeen, why was he not? And was he indeed the son of Simpson EDWARDS?

I have recently taken a DNA test and am hoping this might be a way int this problem but are there any other places I can look? Would there be apprenticeship records in Aberdeen?

Gen in NBL England

[..claire..]

Wonder if this is the man who married your ancestor

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy_(theologian)

[..claire..]

Have you looked into the William EDWARD that was baptised in 1822 at St Nicholas Aberdeen: parents Alexander Edward & Isabel Cruickshank, or possibly any other William with a similar name.

[Gen List Lass]

Claire

For the EDWARDS marriage in Aberdeen 1843 - "Rev. Kennedy was pastor of a Congregational church in Aberdeen from 1836 to 1846"

If this was the minister who married William EDWARDS in 1843, why were they not married at the Congregational church?  I'm very aware that before 1837, south of the Border, non-Conformists couldn't marry anywhere except a C of E church or north of the Border. But what was the case in Scotland in 1843?

Gen in NBL UK

[Gen List Lass]

Claire

We downloaded that 1822 baptism years ago and for some reason discounted it. (I've just emailed my cousin to jog her memory)

One thing that might be important, Alexander and Simpson EDWARD(S) both came from Glenbervie in Kincardineshire. Maybe Simpson was William's uncle and not his father?

Gen in NBL UK

[Forfarian]

None of their 7 children were baptised.

They probably were, but there is no surviving record. Not quite the same thing

William's first child was called Fergus Fergusson EDWARDS. We thought he might have been named after Rev Fergus Fergusson an Episcopalian minister at St Pauls Aberdeen. So far I've reached a dead end on that one, Register House in Edinburgh know nothing about St Pauls records!

No, they wouldn't. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which made its registers available to Scotland's People, the Episcopal Church has not (so far). It would be pretty difficult to do, because the Episcopal registers are all over the place - some still in the churches, some in diocesan offices, some in local or university archives. I would have thought it very likely that anyone named Fergus Fergusson at that time was named after the Reverend one.[/quote]

[Forfarian]

I'm very aware that before 1837, south of the Border, non-Conformists couldn't marry anywhere except a C of E church or north of the Border. But what was the case in Scotland in 1843?

You didn't need to get married by a minister. You could contract a perfectly valid legal marriage by declaring yourselves married before witnesses, or by declaring an intention to marry followed by sex, and you could be married by 'habit and repute' if you have openly lived together and most people thought you were married.

And while on the topic, it was very much the exception to get married in the church building. Weddings took place in the bride's home, or, if she was a long way from her parents' home or had no parents, in her employer's home or in the manse (the minister's house).

See https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/economicsocialhistory/historymedicine/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/marriage/

[Gen List Lass]

Forfarian

This is fascinating stuff! It just shows how differently things were done in Scotland compared to just over the Border in Northumberland (where the bulk of my research is).

I'm pleased that you also think naming your firstborn Fergus Fergusson EDWARDS after the Episcopalian minister of the same first two names, is significant. And I have long suspected that the EDWARDS weren't "mainstream" Church of Scotland. Firstly being married by a "Dissenting Minister" and secondly buried in England in unconsecrated ground in a civil cemetery by a Presbyterian minister.

As my two emails to St Pauls Episcopalian church have been unanswered, I am going to phone them and see if I can pin down where the registers are held or even if they are extant!

Thank you for setting before me some more clues. The quest continues.

Gen in Northumberland UK

[Gen List Lass]

If you didn't need to get married by a minister, did the same apply to baptisms? Could anyone baptise a child? Especially Episcopalians? Or "Dissenters"

Gen in NBL UK