450 (Newburgh V1 p_ There is also a note in regard to registrations of births in 1792 in Newburgh "The parents are Independants and

do not baptise their children in infancy"

Torphichen 17th November 1846: The Session took into consideration the practise of parents wishing and obtaining the baptism of their infant children in their homes instead of bringing them to obtain the ordinsance in the church as the law of the church endures The Session disapproved the practise and enjoined that no child shall henceforth be baptised in this parish except in the church unless there be some positive reason such as the ill health of the child or the inclemency of the weather.

Q. Why can I not find my relatives death? A. Maybe the people who buried your relative had no name: 673 (Whitburn) V4 p40 1823 Feb 25th Mortcloth to a stranger 2/-

683 (Dalkeith) V12 p110 1843 May 8 A child of a travelling Mormon

Burials and funeral practices. Multi burials are rather common everywhere. Now a days the usual number is 2 and perhaps if a child is involved 3. All you have to do, (sorry for indelicacy) is to dig the hole deeper. One coffin is then placed on top of the other. If there is considerable time between burials and the lower coffin is broken, it takes a lot of years for this to happen, but if it does, then a simple platform is put over the lower one before the burial of the second to hold the weight, and the packed earth around it provides structural integrity for the platform. Cremation did not become a popular alternative until the late 1960 ties or so. I believe the only crematorium was in Glasgow, still may be for that matter. CAUTION: BELOW IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE CREMATION BE SOMETHING EVERYONE WANTS TO KNOW. PROCESS AND MAY NOT

Cremation is a considerable process in which the burning is used simply to remove/incinerate the flesh and organs of the remains. The coffin also burns up and then the metal parts such as handles etc., are removed. The skeletal remains are then grinded into small particles and placed in a container for burial or storage. END OF CREMATION SECTION: Considering transport, local feelings about the practice at the time (1908) and the cost I would doubt cremation was even a consideration or option. Even until the late 1960 ties, in Inverness any way, and all over the Highlands, and I presume in the south also, unless the person died in the hospital and even then, most people were laid out in the home. in their bed and visitation took place from there. The local cabinet maker provided the coffin, which was delivered to the house. The body was placed in the coffin, usually the night before the funeral, and placed on a plank supported between 2 chairs, or on a table. But in most of the modest homes, like today there was only the one table and that was where the food was placed. Funeral of a male: After the body was washed and dressed the friends and family would begin to

arrive. Ladies brought sandwiches buns and such and the men brought a bottle. (whisky) On entering the home you removed your hat, wiped your feet 3 times on the entrance mat, always left right left. (Superstition) You held your hat in your left hand and shook the hosts hand, if a male, (example eldest son) with your right. You kept your head bowed in respect. You would say, " What a terrible loss" to a son, and " He will be missed" to a wife or daughter. (If it was a woman who died" " She was a good wife and mother and passed much too soon." The eldest male then took the men to see the body. Pennies had been placed in the eyes, (Pennies in Scotland were quite large at the time, about the size of a silver dollar and made of copper so they worked to keep away the evil spirits as well.) You were expected to titter and shake your head. Then you placed the right hand on the head of the deceased. Bow your head, while shaking it slightly and say a prayer. You then step back and say " What a terrible loss", or something to that effect. Then the next one went in turn. You usually arrived in pairs of two men together and the women arrived in singles or with their husbands or sons. Now you went to the sitting room to meet the widow. "Oh Mrs. Mac what a terrible loss he was such a fine man." (Note: Everyone had a black suit in their closet for weddings and funerals. A white collar, (collars clipped on and off the shirts in those days.) and at least one tie and black shoes or boots shined. It was now time to remember and each in turn, after leaving the bedroom would address the wife. The son or eldest male would then offer you a dram (drink/whisky) to help steady your nerves after such a great loss of a friend. As the dram was sipped the drinker would regale some memory of the person. It was quite a sedate affair. The women would be drinking gallons of tea. About 4 PM and after a decent dram the stories got better, the atmosphere was a little more relaxed, and the wake started.

An English officer once wrote in his journal, or it was Mr.Dr. Samuals, (I canna remember at the moment) "A Scottish funeral is much more merry than an English wedding." Here is an example of my Granda's funeral up in Wester Ross. Gaelic country. Granda was brought to the main room in my uncle's home in Gairloch. (driven the 25 miles south from Melvaig a small village of about 10 crofts in those days. ) This made it a bit easier for those coming from Loch Marie, Loch Broom, Inverness, and all over to get to the funeral. The old and very young rode the lorry/truck and the rest of us walked the 25 miles over the hills. It was the same truck Great Uncle Murdough had lost his arm on escaping from the Internal Revenue whisky chases. Great Uncle Alastair brought his whisky. (It did not carry the Kings tax seal) For about the first hour or so, things were quite sedate. Tea was served at about 4 PM with sandwiches, cakes, sweet puns, etc. Afterb tea and as the sun went down the noise got louder. Great Uncle Donald. got out the pipes and there was a fiddle etc., First off Uncle Donald played a grand version of The Flowers Of The Forest, man I will tell you this, that would of a brought a tear to a glass eye. Then he played Granda's favourite "The Brown Haired Maiden." About half way through the fiddles and other instruments began to join in. Aunty Kirsta sang, what in the English is called The Orange and The Blue, a grand old Gaelic walking song, (as in taking a walk not as in working the wool) Well by now the whisky was flowing like water and the supply eventually went dry. No problem Granda was hoisted on a few shoulders and off we went to the local hotel. Everyone in the village was at the funeral anyway so the move was no big deal and there was always a stash of "well hidden Domestic Highland Whisky there" The party continued. At one point a woman from over by Loch Marie got quite upset that Granda, who was sitting with a glass of whisky in one hand and a fag (cigarette) in the other would not dance with her. Hahahaha and him as stiff as a post.

We had been drinking his health for about 3 days before we brought him to Gairloch, so nobody was in any shape to think a rational thought. The next day it was time for the burial, so we set up teams to hoist the coffin on our shoulders at various points along the way. The snag was there was no Granda to be found We did not learn of this until we were all gathered at the church. Someone remembered eventually and a team of 6 men hurried back to the pub to retrieve the body. After the funeral we all headed out with the coffin raised high to the cemetery. He was a well respected man and so he needed a fine wake to send him off. Now how do I know so much about stacking the coffins you may well ask. Well when my other granda died I was not in the steadiest of condition having welcomed a number of guests and drunk his health enough times to bring him back from the dead. Well I leaned over and fell in the bloody hole right on top of my granny's coffin which had been there several years and I can tell you that when my face was flattened on it and I can assure you the lump on mu head testified that the coffin was in good firm condition. We just lowered him on to it and filled the hole. Now I realize the above may seem a great disrespect to the people involved. Not in the Highlands at that time. People would go into debt for a good wake it was a matter of pride. You should of seen the wake for my father. Man that is book in its self. Dave

Several years ago I began writing my family history. Having no idea how to go about it, my first thought was to discover the origination of my surname. Naturally I soon discovered that there were, and are, lots of Scots with my last name, and variations of it. The whole subject of Scottish surnames, and their connection with kinship, is surrounded by complications. Although the initial inquiry was unprofitable, I continued to study the etymology of Scottish names, along with the customary genealogical research to develop my family history. Professional etymologists have attempted to classify how Scottish names came about. And, whereas the work is largely successful, the many exceptions and the metamorphosis of names make the study of Scottish names an unfinished one. In this article, I will present some approaches to the study of Scottish names. PLACE-NAMES The use of surnames seems to have commenced in France about the year 1000, and surnames were introduced into Scotland through the Normans a little over one hundred years later, though the custom of using them was hardly common. The first official reference to the practice is from a general council held at Forfar in 1061, during the reign of Malcolm Ceannmor (1057-1093). Malcolm directed his chief subjects to create surnames from the names of their territorial possessions. Thus, the first people in Scotland to acquire fixed surnames were the nobles and great landowners, who called themselves, or were called by others, after the lands they possessed. The form of the names was Norman, - - - de - - -, for instance, Robert de Brus (Brus in Normandy), John de Balliol (Balleul-en-Vimeu in Picard), William de Buchan (Buchan in Scotland), Christopher de Seton (Sayton in Scotland), William de Kirkhaugh (Kirkhaugh in Northumberland, my family), etc. One interesting example comes from the surname of Maxwell. Sometimes confused with the Norman, Maccusville, the name actually came from Maccus, the son of Unwin, a Saxon lord, who obtained a salmon pool on the river Tweed near Kelso Bridge. The pool was then called, Maccus's wiel (pool). The adjacent lands got the name, and the descendants of Maccus became known as, - - - de Maccuswel, and, subsequently, became the powerful Maxwell family of Dumfriesshire and Galloway. But, since not too many persons held significant lands, place-names quickly began to refer to the region or district from where a family originated. For example, Andrew de Moravia (of Moray), William de Douglas (of Douglas dubhglas), Adam de Haddyngton (of Haddington), etc. As the need for a surname became more pressing, residents of the burghs often adopted street names, such as, Henry de Fishergate, Henry de Cunigstrete, etc. So, the first surnames were place-names and originated with a man who lived in or came from a place, sometimes a big district like Moray (Murray) or Lothian, often a small rural community. A proprietor was particularly likely to take his name from his estate, but tenants also often took their names from the estate where they lived. Clearly many individuals, and ultimately of families, could originate in the same place, and take their names from it, without being related to each other. Besides, the same or similar names were given to different places, and so individuals or families who came from

Irregular Marriage For more than half a century a steady stream of fines went to benefit the poor from couples found to be irregularly married. This was a matter affecting Leith probably more than any other place in Scotland, and presented the kirk sessions of both North Leith and South Leith with a particularly frustrating problem. In Scots law it was sufficient for a couple to declare before witnesses that they took each other as husband and wife for the marriage to be legal; but the Church was implacably opposed to such unions, as no record of the transaction was normally made, and the marriage could easily be denied later Many a girl was left with a baby and no income, when the father denied the union. Again, if the man was in the armed forces he might be killed or drowned, but if the marriage was irregular the wife was not informed of her husband's death; she only heard of it by chance from others. Unable to prove her marriage, she did not qualify for a widow's pension, and could not even claim a place on the poor roll. With both soldiers and sailors constantly coming and going, irregular or clandestine marriage became common in Leith. Regular marriage was a ceremony performed by the parish minister, when the details were recorded by the session clerk. Scotland, however, was for so long in a disturbed state, between wars, epidemics and religious differences, that it was not always easy for everyone ot have access to a minister to perform a marriage, and various forms of irregular marriage were practised, as well as no ceremony at all. Couples cohabiting, behaving as husband and wife, and accepted as such by the neighbours, would, if it came to a trial, be adjudged as married 'by habit and repute'. But this anarchic situation was acceptable neither to Church nor State, and in 1661 the Scots Parliament legislated against clandestine marriage, imposing a range of fines, and three months' imprisonment for offenders. The act was to be operated by kirk sessions and the money from fines applied to 'pious uses within the several parishes'. Those celebrating irregular marriages were also to be banished for life: but in the 'killing times' larger issues were filling men's minds, and the act was ineffective. A second act was passed in 1698 with severer penalties, and the two kirk sessions in Leith began actively pursuing the parties to clandestine unions. At first about half a dozen cases a year were reported in South Leith, but after the reintroduction of patronage in 1712 this rate more than doubled. Patronage was the system whereby the laird or chief heritor in a parish could nominate a minister to fill the charges without reference to the wishes of the congregation. This was a widely unpopular measure, and a clandestine marriage was a form of defiance of the parish minister. Another steep rise in irregular marriages took place from about 1729, and through the 1730s the average reached 22 cases per annum, a very worrying development in the life of a village of 5,000 souls. This increase matched the rise of feeling in the Church which led to the Secession from the Establishment in 1733. The first such breakaway in South Leith took place in 1740. Irregular marriages stood at 25 in a year until about 1765, and this took no account of the marriages of Seceders or Episcopalians, all of which were, strictly speaking, irregular, the parish minister having no part in them. This whole tragic business came to an abrupt end in 1784, when two acts of Parliament in 1753 and 1781, covering 'England, Wales and Berwick', were extended to Scotland. Briefly, these acts provided that marriages celebrated in churches other than parish churches, and by ministers

other than the parish minister, should be deemed valid and legal. By this time the population of Leith was increasing to such a degree that it had become virtually impossible for the elders to be aware of all that was going on in the town in the way their predecessors had known the details of life in the village. Clandestine marriage was generally discovered when the first child was born and the parents sought the privilege of baptism for their children. They came to the session, confessed their fault, and were, 'rebuked, exhorted, and ordered to pay the charges'. The fines went to the poor box, the normal fees for a regular marriage were then paid, and the marriage was thus regularised. Then the baby was baptised. When all was said and done, the only ones to benefit from irregular marriage were the poor. One question this raises for me: why didn't people perform their own baptisms as well, if they didn't regard the parish minister as legitimate? The churches formed by the 1733 Secession went through about a century of further schism, before rejoining the Church of Scotland (just in time to take part in the Disruption of 1843). They seem to have adapted themselves to Leith's particular local conditions: the Relief Church was considered notably broadminded, "a great kirk for captains and company porters". 18th century Leith also had a schism among its (presumably tiny) Episcopalian church, between Jacobite and Royalist fractions, and saw the rise of the Glasites, Methodism, and Congregationalism; maybe no other town in Europe had such a complicated mix of Christian sects."

different parts of the country, and shared neither blood nor territorial affinity, could nevertheless have the same surname. Thus, anyone called Calder (or its variant, Caddell) may derive from an ancestor resident in Calder in West Lothian, Calder (or Cadder) in Lanarkshire, Calder (or Cawdor) in Nairnshire, or Calder in Caithness. Similarly, there is no necessary relationship among the many families called Blair, a place-name which occurs in at least a dozen different areas. OFFICIAL AND TRADE NAMES There are surnames that derive from a craft, occupation, or official station. Smith, which is the most common name in Scotland, is an outstanding example. Wright, Baxter or Baker, Tailor, Carpenter, Mason, Shepherd, Slater, are among many others. It would clearly be an unparalleled absurdity to think that one smith was the ancestor of all the people now bearing the name Smith. The same is true when a name of this type arose in the Highlands, where a designation Coinneach Gobha (Kenneth the smith) produced the surname Gow. The Norman form of these names was, - - - le - - -, so for example, from the Ragman Roll: Symon le Glover, Robert le Taillor, Walter le Goldsmith, Aleyn le Barbur, William le Barker, etc. As with the de in the place-names, the le was eventually dropped, giving us the modern form of the names. Many offices were hereditary in feudal as well as in later times. The Stewarts, for example, were the first to be named after their office alone. Although, the first Stewart, Alan, had a son who called himself Walter Fitz Alan, and his son called himself Alan Fitz-Walter. Offices associated with hunting and the king's lands yielded many names, for example: Forest, Warren, Hunt, Park, Woodward, etc. TO-NAMES The great prevalence of certain surnames, in some small towns and villages, led to the use of to-names, "other names," from the Old English, t -nama. To illustrate this, Black cites the following story. A stranger had occasion to call on a fisherman, named Alexander White, living in a Buchan fishing village. But the stranger was ignorant both of the fisherman's to-name and his house. Unfortunately there were many persons of that name in the village. Meeting a young woman, he asked: "Cou'd you tell me fa'r Sanny Fite lives?" "Filk Sanny Fite?" "Muckle Sanny Fite." "Filk muckle Sanny Fite?" "Muckle lang Sanny Fite." "Filk muckle lang Sanny Fite?" "Muckle lang gleyed Sanny Fite," shouted the stranger. "Oh! It's 'Goup-the-lift' ye're seeking," cried the young woman, "and fat

the deevil for dinna ye speer for the man by his richt name at ance?" Translation: "Could you tell me where Alexander White lives?" "Which Alexander White?" "Big Alexander White." "Which big Alexander White?" "Big tall Alexander White." "Which big tall Alexander White?" "Big tall cross-eyed Alexander White," shouted the stranger. "Oh! It's '(Stupidly gaping person)-the-thief' you're seeking," cried the young woman, "and why the devil didn't you ask for the man by his right name in the first place?" Another example from the Borders shows how difficult it can be for a researcher to identify persons if the researcher doesn't know that: John Bell was called Quhitheid, Edward Bell was called the Dansair, John Bell was called Ranyis Johnne, and Andrew Irvin was called Tailyeour curst Geordie. So accustomed were many Scots to being recognized only by their to-name that it became their official name. Familiar examples are: Black, Little, White, Campbell (caimbeul or crooked-mouthed), Cameron (camshron or crooked-nosed), and Meikle (big). Clearly, almost any surname of this type could arise quite independently at different times and in different places. So, again, caution should be taken in arguing a relationship between persons simply because of the similarity in their names. PATRONYMIC NAMES These are the names usually represented in Lowland Scotland by the suffix, son. But with them must be taken the forenames, which became surnames, and are really truncated patronymics, such as, Henry, Mitchell (for Michael) and Arthur. The development of names of this type was more subtle than it was in the first three categories. Designations changed generation by generation. Robert's son might be John Robertson, his son Andrew Johnson, his son Peter Anderson, etc. This system was general in all the northern lands, and it extended to women, with forms that would translate as, for example, Elspeth Johnsdaughter. In Shetland, patronymic names persisted in many families until the nineteenth century, so that there are examples such as, Arthur Anderson, son of Andrew Robertson, or James Manson, son of Magnus Oalson. Strangely, women sometimes used the suffix, son, as in Isabella Johnson, daughter of John Williamson. Throughout most of Lowland Scotland, genuine patronymic practice ended after the fifteenth century. This happened when an individual decided, or some authority decided for him, that he would adopt his father's patronymic as his own surname. Thus, the son of John Robertson called himself not Andrew Johnson but Andrew Robertson. And from that point, Robertson became the surname of his descendants. It was clearly a matter of chance in which generation the

patronymic became the final surname. So that in the example just given, had the decision been taken a generation later, the surname of the family would have been Johnson, not Robertson. The above example shows the dangers of attempting to use surnames of patronymic form as guides to remote ancestry. Half-a-dozen Robertsons are probably descended from half-a-dozen different Roberts who lived in different parts of the country at different times, and have no kinship with each other. It is only by chance that they are called "Robertson" and not Johnson or Anderson. In the Highlands and Galloway, where "son of" was denoted by the prefix, Mac, rather than by the suffix, son, patronymic names were more common than they were in the Lowlands. The Mac could be prefixed to craft names as well as to forenames, giving, for example, Mac an t-saoir, son of the joiner, which became Macintyre, also, for example, the group of names denoting descent from an ecclesiastic: Macnab, Mactaggart, Macpherson and Macvicar, meaning son of the abbot, the priest, the parson, and the vicar, respectively. Names were sometimes carried into two or three stages by using Vic (Mhic, the genitive of Mac). Sixteenth-century examples are Angus MacDonald Vic Angus, son of Donald MacAngus, and Alastair MacAllane Vic Ane Vic Coull. Here is an interesting example from 1617: Hector MacGorrie Vic Achan Vic Allester Vic Ean duff, son of Gorrie MacAchan Vic Allester Vic Ean duff. In women's names, Nean (nighean), meaning "daughter of," could replace Mac, giving patronymics like Margaret nean Ean glas Vic Ilespig. Names of this type, recorded in official registers, were not surnames, and, while individuals so recorded may have had surnames, their surnames were not used in the record. Identification may consequently be difficult for the researcher. For instance, but for their territorial designation of Lochiel, how would anyone know that the men recorded in the mid-sixteenth century as Ewan Allanson, John Dow, his son, and Ewan, his grandson, were in fact all Camerons? The use of genuine patronymics in records continued well into the eighteenth century. For example, in South Uist, in 1721, there were names like Jonn MacEwan Vic Ean Vic Charles, and Murdo MacNeil Vic Ean Vic Duill. In some Highland families the prefix Mac meant not only son of but also descendant of. Such a patronymic, persisting generation by generation, became a surname. An example is MacDonald. Angus of the Isles, in the later thirteenth century, was the son of Donald, and his successors retained MacDonald, not so much as a surname in the modern sense, but as a mark of their descent. However, most of the many MacDonalds of later times had no kinship with the descendants of Angus, or necessarily descended from anyone called Donald. The process by which the genuine surname replaced personal designations that changed from generation to generation, took a long time to complete. There are instances throughout the sixteenth century, in almost any part of the country, that show some people with more than one designation, and it is

difficult to say which, if any, of the designations was a real surname. If a man had a name of patronymic form and a craft name, like Robertson or Pottar, it is difficult to tell which is a genuine patronymic and which is no more than the name of his actual occupation. William Davidson or Litstar, and Matthew Paterson or Litstar, were both priests, but the Litstar (i.e. dyer) is the surname. In the case of Andrew Wilson or Tailor, the son of Andrew Wilson, the name Wilson was the surname, not Tailor. Also there are surnames originating from a place-name combined with a patronymic, such as Alexander Murray or Anguson. MISCELLANEOUS NAMING Under the clan system, prevailing on the Borders and in the Highlands, men often assumed the names of their chieftains or feudal superiors. There was a compelling reason for this sometimes, as when the earl of Menteith -- for some reason -- declared war against all men, except the king and those of the name of Graham. This attracted considerable popularity to that surname in the district of the Lennox and Menteith. But, because of the adoption of clan names, when a man moved from one estate to another, he might change his name. In the 1750's, John MackDonell was really a Campbell, having changed his name to that of MacDonnel upon coming to live in the bounds and under the protection of the MacDonnel family of Glengary. The use of the landlord's name explains why, in the 1580's, a servant of the Earl of Huntly was called, Gordon or Page -- Gordon because his master, Huntly, was a Gordon and Page, he (or an ancestor) being a page. I think that there is a preoccupation in this country with trying to be identified as a descendant of a Highland family or clan. The fact that, at any given time, the Highlands represented a small minority of the population of Scotland, should make it obvious that most persons of Scottish extraction came from lowland families. When discussing this with people I meet, I usually am told that some family ancestor had a Highland name. From what has been written here so far, it should be clear that this use of name to establish a relationship is suspect. Further, many Highland names are also lowland names. Gordon is a particularly good example of a name usually regarded as a Highland clan name without there being any grounds for considering it so. The name originated with Richer de Gordun, lord of the barony of Gordon in the Merse. But when a branch of the family later settled in Strathbogie, the whole country around soon became full of men calling themselves Gordon. This name is now widespread throughout Scotland, and there is even a Polish family of Gordon. Generally speaking, if you think you have descended from a Highland family, or clan, you are probably wrong. Occasionally there is a switch from one kind of designation to another. In the 1470's, the three sons of Thomas Soutar were David, John and Thomas Thomson, and whether their descendants were Soutars or Thomsons is unknown. There was, also, an inclination for people to give up the more outlandish names to adopt names that were familiar or distinguished. It seems, to take a curious example, that the Scandinavian, Sigurdsson, which became Shuardson in Shetland, was Scotticised as Stewartson and finished as Stewart. So, not

all Stewarts were related to a Stewart king. Further some Stewarts probably descended from the stewards of this or that estate, not from royal stewards.

Name changes sometimes occurred on inheriting or otherwise acquiring landed property. Sometimes charters even specified that the proprietor must bear a certain name. For similar reasons, husbands sometimes took their wives' names. In any of such cases, the surname ceases to be a guide to more remote ancestry. In ancestral research, variations in the spelling of a name can be confusing, particularly if there is no significance in variant spellings of the same name. For example, prior to sixteen hundred, my ancestors' family name was spelled, Kirkhaugh, Kirkhaucht, Kirkalch, Kirkhalche, Kirkhaulch, Kirkhauch, Kyrkhauch, and Kyrkhalch; all of which would have sounded alike when spoken. Also, in Highland names, there is no significance in the variation between Mac and Mc, and between the use of a capital or a small letter in the second part of the name, such as, MacLean and Maclean. The variation in spelling is easy to understand when one realizes that most people in the middle ages could not read or write. If a person could not spell their name, someone recording the name did so phonetically. Different scribes used different spellings, and the same scribe might use different spellings within the same document. Even an individual might spell his own name in different ways on different occasions. In fact, until about two and a half centuries ago, the spelling of proper names, and many other words, was quite arbitrary. So no significance should be attached to different spellings as indicative of ancestry or relationship. It sometimes was simply a matter of chance that a family adopted a particular spelling, while other families, possibly closely related to them, adopted different spellings. On the other hand, similar spellings of different names may lead a researcher astray. Livingston is a Lowland name, of West Lothian origin, but Livingstone is a Highland name, and there is no relation between the two. Similarly, Johnson is a patronymic name, but Johnston derives from John's toun or settlement, while Johnstone might originate in the name of some landmark. Some Camerons -- perhaps most -- are Highland Camerons from Lochiel, but others take their names from the places called Cameron in Lothian and Fife. Dewar and Shaw are other examples of names with distinct Highland and Lowland origins, and Dunn, while it may derive from the Gaelic, donn, may equally well derive from the place Dun, in Angus. The distinction between a Highland and Lowland origin has often been effaced when a Gaelic name has been translated into English, so that MacNeacail becomes Nicolson, and MacGille-mhoire becomes Morison -- which means that they are added to the host of unrelated patronymics spanning the whole country, with no affinity among them. Compilers of official records did not always have a consistent preference for a surname, and when there was consistency, it was often based on utilitarian considerations, by using a designation that most clearly identified the individual. On the other hand, it may be that the official recording of names

had a certain influence in stabilizing surnames, and in some areas the establishment of the Register of Sasines in 1617 clearly had some effect. Variation of names further declined because ministers, in their registers of baptisms, marriages and burials, preferred names which they did not feel was outlandish. In the Highlands, many names indicative of remote ancestry were lost because ministers had difficulty in recording Gaelic names unfamiliar to them. They substituted names which had well established Anglicized forms. Variations that survived into the nineteenth century were further curbed by the compulsory registration of births, marriages and deaths in 1855. Registrars began to insist that individuals use the same surname as his father. FORENAMES Naming conventions of the forename (Christian name) can sometimes help in the tracing of families. A very widespread custom was for the eldest legitimate son to be named after his paternal grandfather, the second son after his maternal grandfather, and the third son after his father. The eldest daughter took the name of her maternal grandmother, the second, that of her paternal Grandmother, and the third was named after her mother. Mothers' or grandmothers' surnames were sometimes used as forenames for boys: Graham, Murray, etc. But even with these conventions difficulties can arise. For example, my grandfather named my father, William. My father named me, William, I named my eldest son William, and he must now name his eldest son William, and so on forever. Within a few generations, with early marriages and long lives, it may become difficult to sort out the individuals. Also, it was a not an uncommon practice in the late Middle Ages for two brothers to have the same forename; a custom which has caused confusion for genealogists. There were two Davids in the family of the father of Cardinal Beaton. One of my own ancestral families had two Williams. But William de Viteri Ponte had three sons named William, distinguished as, Willelmus primogenitus, Willelmus medius, and Willelmus junior. King James V had three illegitimate sons named James, and on 26 February 1532 he wrote to Pope Clement VII asking him to declare them eligible to hold ecclesiastical dignities. I think that there are two principal reasons why these duplicates came about, besides caprice. Sometimes a child died young, and the duplicate named brother was his replacement in the family. But perhaps most commonly, was the necessity of naming a child after each of its grandparents, and, as both happened to have the same forename, the only way of bestowing the honor and getting out of the difficulty was by having the double set.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Black, George F. The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origins, Meanings, and History. New York: Publishing Center for Cultural Resources, 1946. Jamieson, John. "A dissertation on the origin of the Scottish language." In Jamieson's dictionary of the Scottish language. Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1867. Kirk, William L., Jr. "From Kirkhaugh to Kirk." In The Augustan Society Omnibus Book 13, ed. Sir Rodney Hartwell. Torrance: Directors of the Society, 1991. 134-136. Maxwell, Sir Herbert. A history of Dumfries and Galloway. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1900. "Scottish Naming Customs." Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society Newsletter. November 1988, p. 10.

Scottish Naming Patterns There are several patterns for the naming of children which have been observed by family historians as having been practiced in Scotland; most particularly from the early 19th century onwards. The patterns have also been observed in northern Ireland, the English Borders and elsewhere in Britain, right down to Kent in the SE corner. In Scotland, this was described by Gerald-Hamilton-Edwards in his book "In Search of Scottish Ancestry" in the chapter entitled Naming Customs. The author felt that naming customs used by Scottish families was of such significance to genealogists to devote a chapter to the subject. Mr. Edwards gave the following as the general custom, with some variations: Pattern 1 - First Christian or Fore-names 1st son after paternal grandfather 2nd son after maternal grandfather 3rd son after Father 4th son after the father's eldest brother. and similarly for daughters - first forenames 1st daughter after maternal grandmother 2nd daughter after paternal grandmother 3rd daughter after mother 4th daughter after the mother's eldest sister. Pattern 2 - Ancestors Surnames as Middle Names Another naming custom in Scotland, which appeared in the early to middle 19th century, is to use family surnames as a middle name, thus preserving surnames for another generation. This can include all family connections from blood lines to married in lines. There appears to be a pattern here too. Although the following naming practice was not an invariant tradition, it may give a clue about the name of grandparents whose names are so elusive in genealogical research. The first son was named after the father's father. The second son was named after the mother's father. The third son was named after the father. The fourth son was named after the father's eldest brother. The first daughter was named after the mother's mother. The second daughter was named after the father's mother. The third daughter was named after the mother. The fourth daughter was named after the mother's eldest sister. Biblical Names It was also common practice among Quaker families and in severe Church of

Scotland sects to give their children Biblical Christian names. This practice became briefly fashionable in Victorian Britain.

SCOTTISH NAMING PATTERNS Most often used pattern for given names was 1st son after paternal grandfather 2nd son after maternal grandfatther 3rd son after father 1st daughter after maternal grandmother 2nd daughter after paternal grandmother 3rd daughter after mother Thereafter, common to use uncles' and aunts' names, but I have only ever come across a very few instances of strict adherence to 4th son after fathers' eldest brother 4th daughter after mothers' eldest sister Similarly you may come come across rules for naming 5th and subsequent sons and daughters but I have never come across a case where I can show such rules to be strictly followed. In about 10% of cases where the naming convention was used you will find a switch in the maternal/paternal pattern, i.e. Ist son after maternal grandfather 2nd son after paternal grandmother 3rd son after father 1st daughter after paternal grandmother 2nd daughter after maternal grandmother 3rd daughter after mother In situations where the father and grandfather had the same name, the pattern may be altered to avoid duplication, but it is also not atall uncommon to find two sons with the same given name, i.e. altho' the repeat of a name will often mean that the eldest died in infancy, this cannot be assumed without checking the naming pattern possibilities. There are also rare occurences of 3 sons with the same name as the father and both grandfathers had the same name. As to the period during which the naming pattern tradition was used you will find it relatively uncommon to come across strict usage from the early 1900's onwards, especially once the size of families started to decrease. Before that it was used widely, but you will find at the one extreme families who stick strictly to the conventions for a number of generations right thru to families where there is no apparent usage of the convention. The most frustrating for a genealogist can be

families that only partly used the convention and/or sometimes did and sometimes didn't. Another commonly used naming convention in Scotland is the use, widespread only from the early 1800's onwards, of using the mother's maiden name, or one of the grandmother's maiden names as a middle name,- this practice can even extend back to a maternal grandparent of the parents, i.e. ggrandmother of the child, especially if the person in question died a short time before the birth in question. As far as I am aware there was no set pattern or sequence in the use of such maiden names.

CH2/283/6/127 Newton Church 16th Oct 1831: The Session proceeded to fil up the office of Session Clerk. Vacated by the death of the late Mr Hart, when it was unanimously resolved to appoint Mr Robert Meikle to that office who has been lately appointed Parochial Schoolmaster to enjoy the salary and emoluments thereto belonging as follows: For every registration of a birth and baptism 1/6 and for every extract of the same 1/-. For every order to break ground in the churchyard 1/-. Fro every Proclamation of Banns (including extract) 4/6 the fees for which to be charged as under: For three separate Sundays 7/-; for two Sundays 10/6 and for one Sunday 21/- (the above however to without prejudice to the proportion of said dues payable to the bellman as heretofore) For every Parish Certificate 1/-

THE SCOTTISH WAY OF BIRTH AND DEATH

From the Records of the Registrar General for Scotland, 1855-1939

A Project by the Centre for the History of Medicine

(Image: 'Craigdarroch Burial Ground, Glencairn', by permission of Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.)

This project, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, is a history of civil registration in Scotland from its beginning in 1855 until the Second World War. It shows how the basic tools of Scotland's 'vital statistics' - the registers of births, marriages and deaths, were produced. This site describes some of the people responsible for Scotland's vital records, the difficulties they experienced, and some of the characteristics of the Scottish registration system. Amongst other things, it looks at the problems of producing accurate death certificates, regular and 'irregular' marriages (including those at Gretna Green), divorce, compulsory smallpox vaccination, the compiling of the census, and the work of the General Register Office for Scotland in times of war. If you click on the headings on the left hand side of this page, several of them have further sections discussing different aspects of that subject. The records of the Registrar General for Scotland, held in the National Archives of Scotland, are a magnificent source of information on the social history of Scotland, since they deal with everyday life and personal relationships. If you have Scottish ancestors, and have traced their vital records in the General Register Office for Scotland, you may find this site of interest in showing how your family records were created - and why they should not always be taken at face value!

Introduction
Scotland did not have a law requiring registration of births, marriages and deaths until 1854, nineteen years later than England. Official recording of births, marriages and deaths did not begin until 1855.

The Old Parish Registers

Previously, the only records of these events were kept by the churches, who took note of baptisms, proclamation of the banns of marriage, and burials. They did not always note the actual dates of births,

University of Glasgow :: Scottish Way of Birth and Death :: Introduction

marriages and deaths. It was also possible for vital events to pass unrecorded, for example, if a child died before baptism, or if a burial took place without a minister present. The most extensive information about pre-1855 vital events can be found in the old parish registers of the Church of Scotland, but since there was often a fee for entering an event in the parish register, poor people sometimes avoided registration. The old parish registers were not always well kept. Many were neglected or destroyed, and even those that survived did not include the whole population of the parish. The minister on the island of South Uist reported that: 'Two thirds of the population are Roman Catholics: and . . . it is impossible to keep a regular register of the whole population . . .' After 1855, the old registers were removed from the parishes (often in the teeth of opposition from the minister and congregation), and placed in the care of the new Registrar General for Scotland. His office was in Register House in Edinburgh, a handsome Robert Adam building in Princes Street, where the

historical and legal records of Scotland were kept.

In 1861 the Registrar General and his staff moved into an impressive adjacent building, New Register House, which is still the location of the General Register Office for Scotland. The old parish registers, and the civil birth, marriage and death registers from 1855 onwards, may be seen there. They are also accessible online via ScotlandsPeople.
(Image: New Register House, by kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.)

The Fight for Registration

Why did Scotland take so long to catch up with England in officially recording these vital events? The answer lies partly with the strong opposition of the Church of Scotland, whose parish clerks (the clerks
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University of Glasgow :: Scottish Way of Birth and Death :: Introduction

of session) had a useful income from fees for making entries in the parish register. Another reason was the nature of Scottish local government. After 1834 England was divided into about 600 Poor Law unions for administering the relief of the poor, and each union was large enough to employ a full-time clerk who could usefully double as a local registrar of births, marriages and deaths. Scotland, however, remained split into over 1,000 parishes, although it had only a sixth of England's population. Small parishes, some very poor, feared the possible cost of maintaining a registrar. Finally, the politicians most interested in reforming Scottish registration made the mistake of trying to reform the Scots law of marriage at the same time (for a discussion of this, see marriage), and this was also bitterly resisted by the Church of Scotland. An obvious compromise was to appoint the existing session clerks as part-time registrars, but this was equally bitterly opposed by the Free Church, which was founded after the Great Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. The Free Church did not see why officials of the Church of Scotland should benefit financially from compulsory registration. The people who pressed most vigorously for registration were doctors (especially the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh), and lawyers. The doctors knew that without reliable information on birth and death rates, and on the causes of death, it was difficult to form an accurate picture of health and disease in Scotland. The lawyers argued that it was often impossible to settle inheritance disputes if a claimant had no proof of birth or parentage. And in a modern society, it was becoming more important to have proof of age. Factory owners, for example, were not supposed to employ underage children; but without birth certificates, it was easy to break the rules. In 1854, after much argument and many failed attempts to push Scottish registration through Parliament, a compromise was reached. The clerks of session could become part-time registrars if they wished, but when they died or retired, the parishes could appoint any suitable replacement. Women were not

permitted to apply for the post. Although Scotland took much longer than England to start registering births, marriages and deaths, there were some advantages in the delay, for the Scots law tried to avoid some of the problems of the English. In Scotland, registration was compulsory from 1855. In England, where there were no penalties for failing to register a vital event, it was easier to evade registration until the law was tightened up in 1874.
(Image: Records in the dome of General Register House, by kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.)

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University of Glasgow :: Scottish Way of Birth and Death :: Introduction

Additional Registers
Register of Corrected Entries As well as the new civil registers of births, deaths and marriages, the Scottish Registration Act of 1854 provided for a Register of Corrected Entries to be kept for each parish or registration district. If any birth, death or marriage registration was found to be erroneous, and if the Sheriff, after taking evidence from the original informant and any other people concerned, was satisfied of this, he would authorize the correct details of the event in question to be entered in the Register of Corrected Entries. The original, erroneous entry in the birth, death or marriage register was not to be scored out or altered - instead, a note was to be made in the margin alongside it, giving the volume, page and date reference to the new entry in the Register of Corrected Entries. Register of Neglected Entries The Registration Act gave the people of Scotland one year's grace to have any vital events that had occurred before 31 December 1854 entered in the old parish registers (not the new, civil registers). After 31 December 1855, such retrospective registrations were no longer permitted, but the General Register Office continued to receive correspondence from people who had omitted to register children born before 1855, and who were anxious to have this done. In 1860, an amendment to the Registration Act was passed, authorizing the GROS to establish a Register of Neglected Entries. For a fee of 5 shillings, any birth, death or marriage that had taken place in Scotland between 31 December 1800 and 1 January 1855 could now be entered in this new register, providing that the person seeking the registration had first applied to the Sheriff, and that the Sheriff, after hearing evidence from all the parties concerned, had granted a warrant for the registration. Obviously, this required more expense and effort than many families were willing to make. Foreign Register At first, the new civil registers did not record the vital events of Scottish people living outside Scotland. Several Scots who wrote to the Registrar General seeking registration of children born in England or abroad were disappointed to learn this. But an amending Act in 1860 made some effort to change the situation. The birth of a child to Scottish parents, or the death or marriage of any Scottish person, that took place within the British empire or a British dependency, would be recorded in that country. Settler colonies such as Canada and Australia rapidly adopted English forms of registration, but countries such as India had no such laws, largely because of the cost of enforcing them. Special provisions were therefore made for British residents, but not for local people in those countries. Scots living in 'foreign' territories outside the Empire could ask the British consul to certify the event, and if they notified the Registrar General of this within 12 months, it was recorded in a special book called 'The Foreign Register'.

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Leading Actors
The coming of registration, and the opening of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) created a number of job opportunities, both in Edinburgh and in the parishes. The new Registrar

University of Glasgow :: Scottish Way of Birth and Death :: Leading Actors

General was supported by a small group of assistants and clerks, and he kept an eye on local registration through a team of registration examiners. The examiners were essentially inspectors, of the kind already being employed in Britain to inspect schools, prisons, factories, workhouses and other institutions. All these officials were paid for by the British taxpayer, and their salaries and other expenses had to be approved by the Treasury. Costs were cut to the bone, usually by employing senior officials part-time so that they could combine registration duties with other posts. The office staff were poorly paid, and there are many letters from them in the GROS records complaining of their poverty and begging for higher salaries. But it was possible to move through the ranks from office boy to senior clerk, and unlike most other occupations in the nineteenth century, a small pension was paid on retirement. GROS staff tended to be very long serving, unless forced out by illness. The first Registrar General, William Pitt Dundas, was appointed during a period of change in British administration. His powerful grandfather, the first Viscount Melville, is famous in Scottish history for the number of jobs in the public service at his disposal, in Scotland and in the army and navy. Pitt Dundas received many letters from young men begging for work, and was irritated to find that changes in the civil service regulations forced him to appoint staff through competitive examination rather than as favours to his friends. Nevertheless, for much of the nineteenth century, it was an advantage to have good connections in order to secure an appointment. As the Scottish population grew, from about 2.8 million in 1851 to nearly 4.5 million in 1901, the Registrars General needed a larger staff to maintain the registers and calculate the vital statistics of Scotland, all this work being done manually. The staff was never very large, and had to be supplemented during the intensive work on the census every ten years. The GROS remained a men-only office until the First World War, when labour shortages and the great pressure on the Registrar General to maintain the National Register finally broke down opposition to women workers in the office.

(Image: 1911 census staff, by kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.)

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Birth

The Scottish Registration Act was tougher than the early English Registration Act in trying to keep an accurate record of births. In Scotland, parents had to register a child's birth within 21 days. If they failed to do so, the registrar was supposed to contact them, and if they did not give information within three months of the birth, they could be fined 2. As a safeguard, ministers were to inform the registrar if any baby was brought for baptism without an extract of its birth registration being shown (everyone registering a birth received this extract from the registrar free of charge). If a child was born outside the parish of the parents' usual residence, then the registrar who recorded the birth had to inform the home parish.
(Image: Infant in christening robe, courtesy of Dundee University Archives.)

Illegitimacy
The mother was responsible for reporting the birth of an illegitimate baby, and the father's name could not be recorded unless he accompanied her to the registrar's office and declared himself willing to have his name on the register, or a court had already decided that he was the father and liable to maintain the baby. The word 'illegitimate' was firmly recorded against these entries in the register, and on extracts of birth registration (i.e. birth certificates), until 1919. By that time, public opinion had turned against stigmatizing people born out of wedlock, though the registrars still kept a record of illegitimate births for the national statistics. People born before 1919 could now ask for a new copy of their birth certificate, in which the word 'illegitimate' would not appear, although it remained in the register. Scots law, unlike English law, made a child born out of wedlock legitimate if the parents married after the birth. The registrar had to make a note of this beside the original entry in the birth register, together with the date of the marriage. After 1860, these amendments also appeared in the Register of Corrected Entries rather than the duplicate registers kept in Edinburgh, though the nature of the parents' early relationship remained on the public record. But the law was strict about adultery. Children born of an adulterous relationship could not become legitimate, even if their parents married when free to do so. There were ways around this, as described in the section on divorce.

Illegitimate births were very common in certain parts of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly in the North East and the South West. Many working people did not regard this as a problem, in spite of lectures from their parish ministers. By the late nineteenth century, illegitimacy was regarded as more shameful, and couples would go to greater lengths to conceal the nature of their relationship. The Registrar General often wrote to registrars urging them to check on the credentials of couples who claimed to be married when they registered a birth, but who had difficulty producing a marriage certificate. The most common cases were women whose husbands had deserted them, and who then entered into a new and stable relationship without being able to marry. Divorce was difficult and expensive, and couples would pass themselves off as married, or even go through a bigamous wedding ceremony, to preserve their reputation. Convincing the registrar that their children were legitimate was more difficult, though as the only cases on record are those where the registrar suspected a deception, we cannot know how many couples successfully deceived him and registered their child as legitimate. The law assumed that a child born to a married couple was the husband's, unless he could prove that it was not (for example, if he had been out of the country for a lengthy period before the birth). In the days before DNA testing, disproving paternity was not easy. Registrars occasionally had to deal with indignant husbands who complained of unfaithful wives; but the Registrar General advised registrars to leave any decisions on this matter to the law courts.

Problems of Registration
Birth registration was not easy to enforce in the early days, in spite of the threatened fine. In northern Scotland, and in many of the islands, communications were poor, transport was difficult (especially in winter), and parents could not easily leave their crofts to visit the registrar. It is likely that births in remote areas were not well recorded, especially if the baby died within 21 days. Some of the early birth registers show a fairly casual attitude towards the naming of children. In the 1855 birth register for Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, several babies were entered only by their surnames. Since the register was not amended, the first name cannot have been reported within the six months that were allowed for this. Many families in these communities had the same surname, and this may have made life difficult for those concerned if they later needed to prove their dates of birth.

(Image: Page from the 1855 birth register for Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, showing detailed family history, but not the child's first name. Click on image for a magnified version. By kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.)

If the registrar had any doubts about the sex of an infant, he could demand that it be produced for his inspection! Although registrars were supposed to pursue parents who had not reported a birth, the first examiners were not satisfied that all the registrars were doing their duty, as in the parish of Watten (Caithness) in 1855. The examiner complained that the registrar: 'discovers the births &c. in the Newspapers . . . [and] does not take a sufficient interest in his business; nor does he trouble himself where anything is wrong about the Correction of it'. Like several other features of the 1854 Act, the regulations on birth registration caused problems and had to be changed rapidly. The first register in 1855 demanded many details, including the parents' ages and birthplaces, and the number and ages of all other children born to them, whether living or dead. The registrars objected to the time and effort involved in entering all these details, but there was a more compelling reason for dropping them, since the first printed registration books issued to the registrars did not have enough space to enter the details of previous children born to the family, and it would be expensive to enlarge them. After 1855 these details were no longer required, to the regret of many doctors then and family historians today.

(Image: Page from the 1890 birth register for Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. Click on image for a magnified version. By kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.)

Although many of the difficulties of birth registration were sorted out after the early years, the registrars still had to deal with some knotty problems. All the deficiencies of early birth registration were revealed when old age pensions were introduced in Britain in 1908. Only people over 70 years of age were eligible for a pension at that time, and many had cause to regret that their parents had been casual about registering their birth. The Registrar General had to deal with many sad cases of elderly people who were not sure when or where they were born, and who were having difficulty claiming their pensions. Birth certificates were therefore important, not only as a proof of age and parentage, but of respectability. People with 'illegitimate' on their birth certificates were embarrassed at having to produce them for official purposes, as were people born in poorhouses or asylums. The poorhouse problem was partly solved after 1913, when registrars were instructed to put down a street address,

rather than the institution's name, as the place of birth.

Marriage
The Law

The laws of marriage were quite different in England and Scotland. In England, marriage was a religious sacrament as well as a legal contract, and a marriage was not legal unless celebrated by a minister of religion and in the parish church. Only Jews and Quakers were exempt from this regulation, which aimed to prevent irregular marriages, or marriages conducted by non-Anglican clergy.
(Image: Shetland wedding procession, courtesy of the Shetland Museum Photographic Archive.)

In 1836, a Marriage Act was passed alongside the Registration Act for England, and this allowed civil marriages in the register office in the presence of the superintendent registrar. Church of England clergy still had privileges: they could keep their own register of marriages and send a copy to the local registrar; but non-Anglican couples who married in their own church also had to marry in a register office, as did those who did not want a religious ceremony. This continued until 1898, when Nonconformist ministers were authorized to conduct legal marriages in their chapels, and report them to the registrar. Scotland was famous for its distinctive marriage arrangements, which owed much to pre-Reformation canon law, and were based on principles of mutual consent rather than religious ceremony. Both 'regular' and 'irregular' marriages were recognised by the law. A 'regular' church marriage, requiring marriage banns to be read in the church some weeks in advance, was the usual practice, and from 1834 'priests and ministers not of the established church' were also allowed to conduct legal marriage ceremonies. In Scotland, regular marriages did not have to take place within a church building; indeed, they were more likely to take place in private homes. Even so, at first sight, Scotland's system seemed more religious in practice than England's, because civil ceremonies in a register office were not possible until after an Act of Parliament in 1939. But Scotland's fame for distinctive marriage practices stemmed from 'irregular' marriages. There were three ways of forming a legal marriage without banns or a minister being present. 1. A couple were legally married if they declared themselves to be so in front of witnesses, regardless of whether this was followed by a sexual connection. Marriage contracted in this way without witnesses was also legal, but much harder to prove in court unless there was other evidence, such as letters that confirmed what the couple had done.

2. A promise of marriage, followed by a sexual relationship, was regarded as a legal marriage - but this had to be backed up by some kind of proof, such as a written promise of marriage, or an oath sworn before witnesses. 3. Marriages 'by habit and repute' were also legal if a couple usually presented themselves in public as husband and wife, even if no formal declaration of marriage was made. Irregular marriages were frowned on by law and the churches, and couples who admitted to them were fined, but they had the same inheritance rights as regularly married couples, and their children were legitimate. Although the Church of Scotland did not approve of irregular marriages, it tolerated them because it feared that if the law did not recognize such relationships, the couple would end up 'living in sin.' The system was believed to protect women from unscrupulous men who might seduce them with promises of marriage or fake wedding ceremonies. After registration was introduced, an irregular marriage could be registered if the couple presented themselves before a sheriff or magistrate, were 'convicted' as parties to an irregular marriage, and paid a fine. Some found it quicker and cheaper to have their irregular marriage entered in the schedules by the registrar under sheriff's warrant than to go through the expense of banns and a regular marriage ceremony. Marriages established in court by a Decree of Declarator could also be registered, on production to the registrar of an extract of the Decree and payment of 1, but this was not common. In fact, irregular marriages notified to the registrar were infrequent in Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century, and fewer than 100 per year took place between 1855 and 1870. After that, the numbers rose steadily, and then rapidly in the early twentieth century, until they accounted for over 12% of all Scottish marriages in the registers in 1914. They remained at this level until the Second World War. Contrary to the national myth, most took place not on the Scottish border, but in the larger towns. This may have been due to a decline in the influence of the churches, or to the relative cheapness of 'irregular' marriages, but it also reflected the growing number of divorces. Since many churches would not remarry a divorced person, and civil marriage was not possible in Scotland, couples in this position had no alternative but to marry by sheriff's warrant. Although so-called 'irregular' marriage by sheriff's warrant technically attracted a 'fine' until the law was changed in 1916, it was becoming a more frequent legal alternative to a church ceremony. In 1939, marriage registered by sheriff's warrant ended, and it was possible, as in England, to marry by a civil ceremony in the registrar's office. Legal textbooks described all types of marriage outside the churches as 'irregular' until the early twentieth century, but, given the rise in numbers of marriage through sheriff's warrant, the public no longer saw anything irregular in the proceedings. The Registrar General's annual reports give the figures for 'irregular' marriages as notified to the registrars through the sheriffs, but it is very difficult to calculate the number of 'irregular' but entirely legal marriages that were never notified in this way. They tended to come to public attention in court cases involving property, when one of the partners wished to deny that a marriage had taken place, but these cases, which were not common, must have reflected only a small number of relationships that were legally recognised, but did not appear in the registers. Unlike marriages notified to the sheriff, other types of 'irregular' marriage were sometimes hard to prove. A close study of Scottish birth certificates might tell us more about how common this type of marriage was.

Gretna Green: A National Obsession

In 1753, Hardwicke's Marriage Act banned irregular marriages in England, but not in Scotland. An irregular, though legal, marriage could be contracted in Scotland without prior formalities or previous residence requirements. Nor was parental consent required for those under the age of 21, and marriages were legal for girls as young as 12, and boys as young as 14, until 1929, when the marriage age was raised to 16. English couples wishing to marry in a hurry could opt for a 'runaway marriage' north of the border. The blacksmith's anvil at Gretna Green became the most famous location for such marriages, but there were several 'marriage houses' with 'marriage parlours' in other border towns, such as Berwick on Tweed and Lamberton.

(Image: Old Toll House, Gretna Green, advertising its marriage facilities. Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Library, Special Collections Department.)

In fact, border marriages were not common amongst the Scots, and many Scottish lawyers were irritated by Scotland's reputation for condoning such improper practices. As we have seen in the section on the Scottish Registration Act, registration in Scotland was held up for many years because of attempts to link it to reform of the Scots law of marriage. Although the Act of 1854 finally passed partly because it did not make any changes to the marriage laws, a Marriage (Scotland) Act rapidly followed it in 1856. This insisted that at least one of the partners live in Scotland for a minimum of 21 days before marriage, which reduced the attractiveness and convenience of border marriages.

But the Scottish reputation for runaway marriages persisted, as this early twentieth-century postcard of the marriage house near Berwick on Tweed, on the Scotland-England border shows.

(Image: Berwick 'Marriage House', courtesy of the University of St Andrews Library, Special Collections Department.)

The English seem to have been more obsessed with Gretna Green and runaway marriages than the Scots. A summary of the annual report of the Registrar General for Scotland was usually given in the Times, often with comments about the peculiarity of Scottish marriage. Runaway marriages were a staple of English fiction, though fans of Pride and Prejudice will remember how distressed the Bennets were to find that their flighty daughter Lydia had not gone to Gretna with her lover, but was living with him in London. Wilkie Collins frequently used the oddities of Scots marriage law in his popular and sensational novels. Man and Wife (1870) hinged on an unwilling marriage contracted 'accidentally' when a blameless couple briefly pretended to be married to preserve their reputations when stranded for a night in a Scottish inn. In fact, no such brief pretence would have been recognized as a marriage under Scots law. The Registrars General for Scotland were constantly irritated by border marriages, partly because as lawyers and churchmen they disapproved of such irregular proceedings, but also because there were legal problems. Couples who did not follow up their visit to Gretna by having their marriage registered through a sheriff or magistrate, sometimes had difficulty in producing proof of their marriage in later years. Proprietors of 'marriage houses' came and went, and the lists of couples who married in front of witnesses in these houses were not always well preserved. The lists sometimes ended up on the open market, where they fetched good sums for their curiosity value. Several Registrars General had to seek Treasury permission to buy these books, and grumbled at the expense. The high point of border marriages was probably the 1930s, in a less religious age, when motor transport and the expansion of local hotels made a visit to Gretna Green seem romantic and attractive. The Registrar General greatly disapproved of this, and complained that couples were getting married at Gretna 'for the novelty of the thing'. Border marriages were profitable for hotels and marriage parlours, but reckless couples still sometimes failed to complete the legal formalities for registration, and ended up without proof of a valid marriage. The same Act that permitted civil marriage in the registrar's office brought border marriages to an end.

Scottish Registrars and Marriage

People can choose whether or not to get married (though not to be born or to die), and for this reason, local registrars were allowed to charge newlyweds a fee for an extract of their marriage registration (i.e. a marriage certificate). Informants of a birth or death received an extract for free.
(Image: Dundee society wedding, 1920s, courtesy of Dundee University Archives.)

In the early years of registration, the fees that Scottish registrars received for marriage certificates were not generous. In England, registrars received a fee of five shillings (25p) and more if the marriage was by special license. This was a good sum by the standards of the time: about a quarter of a working man's weekly wage. In Scotland the set fee was one shilling (5p), and the registrars were very annoyed at being paid so much less than their English counterparts. Scottish couples could also ask the registrar to attend their marriage ceremony in person and register the event then and there, so long as they gave him 48 hours' written notice. The registrar was entitled to charge a fee of 1 for such attendance, plus another sixpence for every mile he travelled. Many registrars had expected that this would supplement their meagre incomes; but in most parishes such invitations never happened, and when they did, the parties were sometimes so poor that the registrar never received his money. At first, the Registrar General also had to deal with problems caused by ministers. Under the Scottish Registration Act of 1854, every couple marrying regularly had to fill up a Marriage Schedule, have it signed by the officiating minister and the witnesses to the marriage, and send it within three days to the registrar of the parish where the marriage took place. Since in the early days some couples were illiterate, or had difficulty filling in the schedule, the minister could fill it in for them, and check the details, but there was no legal compulsion on him to do this properly, and some ministers were slow, or careless, about their duties. Bad handwriting was a frequent problem. In the Highland parish of Kiltarlity, the registrar (the local schoolmaster) had so much difficulty extracting information from the Free Church Minister that the registration examiner tried to intervene: 'As the [marriage] schedules were so imperfect, I intimated to the Registrar my intention of

calling upon the Free Church Minister; but he advised me not to do so, as I should, at least, be insulted.' Similar complaints were still being made at the end of the nineteenth century, but much less frequently. The early examiners were very interested in the moral state of their territories, and marriages were a key feature in this. Social customs in Banff caused much concern: 'The proportion [of marriages] in the seaboard parishes is always below what it might be, owing to the habit of the fishing populations. Among this class, sexual intercourse frequently takes place before marriage, but a child is seldom brought into the world before the parents are linked in the bond of matrimony; indeed, it seems to be the custom that the breeding powers of the woman are tested before she is considered fit to be a wife.' In Roxburghshire, couples were less scrupulous, and the illegitimacy rate was very high. The examiners pointed out, however, that many registrars followed the common custom of calling the mother by her maiden name after marriage, and it was sometimes hard to tell from the entry in the birth register whether the parents were married or not. In small communities where the registrars knew everyone, errors in the registers could be easily corrected, but in large communities this was more difficult. The registrars did not have to ask for proof of marriage when registering a birth, and a couple might register a child as legitimate without too many questions being asked. The deception would be discovered only if the parents' marriage certificate was later required for legal reasons. During the First and Second World Wars, the registrars received a number of queries about whether 'marriages by proxy' were legal. The situation usually arose when a girlfriend or fiance of a man on active service found herself to be pregnant. In the First World War, the French and some other nations legalized such marriages if both parties made a declaration in front of witnesses, even in different countries. The Registrar General was under pressure to find a way round this problem, as one clergyman wrote to him in 1916 about one of his parishioners in the forces: ' . . . while he was home on leave he got his fiance into trouble and she is "expecting". He is to put her right and acknowledge the child but there is no chance of his getting home. Of course, if he returns home alive things may be set straight, but if he is killed she is left a dishonoured woman and the child illegitimate.' The Registrar General pointed out that in Scotland birth registration could be delayed for three months, giving the parents time to get married and make the baby legitimate, but this hardly solved the problem if the father were killed before he could get home. In spite of all such requests, the GROS did not permit marriage by proxy.

Death

Death registration created more difficulties for the registrars than any other aspect of their duties. The old parish registers sometimes recorded burials and the cause of death; but many recorded only the burials of parishioners where the parish 'mortcloth' (the pall used to cover the body) was hired. Even where burials were regularly recorded, they did not include people who were not buried in the parish kirkyard. Causes of death in the old registers often followed traditional rather than medical descriptions. The Scottish Poor Law provided poor people with the free services of a parish doctor and in the cities this service was widely used, but effective drugs were few and doctors' skills were limited. Even a conscientious doctor might visit a patient only once, give what treatment he could, and leave it at that. In a society where the deaths of babies and young children were commonplace, it seemed pointless to summon the doctor to a deathbed. In remote parishes there were few doctors, and obtaining a death certificate from a medical man was even more difficult. The causes of death in the old registers often referred to ailments by traditional names, and were written down as given by the family of the deceased. In the registers of Edinburgh, 'bowel hive' or 'bole hive' frequently appears as a cause of death amongst infants, although it was not a medically recognized term. It referred to almost any gastric symptoms. The Disruption of the Church of Scotland created problems for death registration as it did for many other aspects of Scottish vital statistics. Free Churchmen continued to bury their dead in the parish kirkyard, and in northern communities where the Free Church was strong, they often did so without reference to the minister or the session clerk, as noted by one of the registration examiners in the early days of registration: 'Unfortunately it often happens that there are no Church Officers; and even when there are, parties frequently break open the gate, dig the grave, and bury the dead, in spite of all opposition.' The need for accurate death reporting was one of the chief motivations for state registration. Death statistics were the basic tool of public health, but proof of death was important for legal purposes, and sudden or unexplained deaths aroused suspicions of foul play. In England, it was not at first compulsory to report births to the registrar even after state registration was introduced. In cases of death, the English Registration Act was rather vague. Those present at a death, or in the house, when someone died, were expected to report the death within eight days, but no penalty was imposed for failing to do this. As in the case of births, the registrar was expected to make his own inquiries. The English law relied on the clergy, undertakers and sextons, who could be fined up to 10 if they buried a body without a certificate of death registration being produced. By the time the Scottish Registration

Act was passed, this system was felt to be most unsatisfactory, particularly for recording infant deaths. Although there were immensely strong social pressures to bury the dead with due formality, desperately poor families, and particularly unmarried mothers, might be tempted to dispose of infants' bodies without ceremony. No clergyman or undertaker would be used, and the death would not be recorded. This gave rise to much anxiety about the possible level of infanticide in Britain. Even when a death was reported to the registrar, the English law did not require the death certificate to be signed by a doctor, though all recognized medical men were given blank forms for the purpose. The English, too, could use the free services of a Poor Law doctor, and it was becoming more common for doctors to write death certificates; but very young children, and old people with chronic conditions, were neglected groups. The Scottish Registration Act tried to avoid these problems by making it compulsory for the Scottish people to report a death. A strict order of responsibility was laid down in the Act, falling first on relatives present at a death, then on the landlord or anyone else in the house, and, if the death occurred in the open, on anyone discovering the body. The penalty for failing to report a death was a fine of 20 shillings, which went up to 40 shillings for a failure to respond to a request for information by the registrar. The Scottish Act also required any doctor who had seen the deceased person in the months before death to provide a certificate within ten days of the death, under penalty of a 40 shilling fine. This, of course, did not end the problem of incomplete reporting of causes of death, since many people had not seen a doctor at all. This page of an early statutory death register for Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, shows the incomplete nature of early registration. An illegitimate baby aged three months, without a recorded Christian name, has died of an unspecified cause, and no medical attendant ever saw her. An elderly woman has died of a vaguely defined 'palsy', without a doctor having seen her, and her death was reported to the registrar by a nephew not present when she died. The local procurator fiscal (the Crown prosecutor) has investigated a case of accidental drowning, as he was legally obliged to do; but the registration examiners of this period often complained that the procurators took little trouble in such cases, since they had limited funds for this purpose. The examiner for the Isles was convinced that it was easy for Highlanders to get away with murder!

(Image: Page from the 1857 death register for Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, by kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland. Click on the image for a magnified version.)

In cases where a doctor had specified the cause of death, he might not have seen the deceased for a considerable time before they died, and was simply assuming that the illness he had been called to treat was also the cause of death. Doctors could also write death certificates without examining the body -

or even checking that the person was actually dead! The law was very unpopular with the medical profession, who were not paid for issuing death certificates, and who did not like certifying the death of a person they had not seen for some months. Their protests led to some relaxation of the law in 1860. After that, a doctor was fined only if he refused to respond to the registrar's request for a certificate. Few doctors were ever penalized in this fashion, and it was probably the medical profession's growing interest in maintaining accurate death statistics, rather than fear of fines, which motivated them to take more care over death registration. Nevertheless, the Scottish law did assist in a general movement towards more accurate death reporting, and the English law was changed in 1874 to bring in similar compulsory measures for reporting a death. By the end of the century, death recording was still causing concern on both sides of the border. Adult deaths were better recorded than in the past, but many infant deaths were still not certified by a doctor. A Parliamentary Committee in 1893 investigated death certification throughout Britain, and found that while the Scottish cities now had a very high level of medically certified deaths - around 97% in Glasgow, for instance - in the Highlands and Islands, the level was still low. In Inverness, 42% of deaths were not certified by a doctor. In the cities, the Medical Officers of Health were chiefly responsible for the improvement in the numbers of medically certified deaths. Henry Littlejohn, the Medical Officer of Health for Edinburgh, threatened to use his powers to bring in the police to investigate every death that was not certified by a doctor, and this had an immediate impact. The Friendly Societies Act of 1882 also had an effect, for it obliged relatives to provide a medical certificate of the cause of death before claiming insurance money from any burial club that the deceased was enrolled in. The main problem in the Highlands was still in having access to a doctor at all, and this was not effectively solved until the introduction of the state-subsidized Highlands and Islands Medical Service in 1913. The change in descriptions of causes of death can be seen on another page of the death register for Stornoway from 1890. All the deaths had been certified by the local doctors, and both the immediate and the underlying causes of death are given. Two of the young people died in a measles epidemic, which is noted, along with the 'proximate' or immediate causes of death, which were uraemia and pneumonia.

(Image: Page from the 1890 death register for Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, by kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland. Click on the image for a magnified version.)

Divorce
Divorce, which now features prominently in the vital statistics of Britain, was less important to the Registrars General of Scotland before the Second World War. Although the General Register Office had to keep a record of divorces, which were noted on the original marriage schedules, divorce was not discussed in the annual reports of the Registrar General until 1920, and the divorce statistics indicate why this was so. In the decade between 1855 and 1864, the first 10 years of registration, the average number of divorces in Scotland each year was only 17. By 1905-14, the figure had risen to an average of 222 per year, a more rapid rise than could be explained by the growth in population, but still such a

small figure that the Registrar General did not think it worthy of comment. During the First World War and immediately afterwards, the annual divorce rate was twice as high as in the preceding decade (an average of 458 divorces per year in 1915-24), with particularly high figures immediately after the war. It remained fairly steady during the 1920s, but began to rise again during the 1930s, and in 1942 the figure was over 1000 for the first time. From 1920, the Registrar General provided the divorce figures in his reports. Although Scottish divorce law was apparently more even-handed, both between the sexes and between social classes, than the law of England, in practice divorce was difficult for social and financial reasons. The Church of Scotland had since the Reformation accepted divorce on the grounds of adultery, and later added the grounds of desertion for more than four years. From 1830, Scottish divorces were decided by the Court of Session, like other cases in civil law. Both men and women could seek divorce for adultery or desertion. This was different from the law of England, where men could divorce their wives for adultery, but women did not have the same right until 1923, unless there were other serious offences involved. Divorce for desertion was not possible in England until 1937. Scottish divorces were cheaper than English ones, and were certainly not confined to the higher classes. Very poor people could claim financial help from the Poor Law authorities if they had a good case against their spouses. In the 1890s, it was said, a Scottish divorce could cost as little as 12. But, as the figures show, few Scots took advantage of these apparently liberal laws. The social stigma of divorce was strong, and even 12 was a large sum for most working people who were not paupers. Divorce cases could be heard only in Edinburgh, which added the extra cost of travel and taking time off work to attend the court. Until 1938 the law of Scotland did not allow divorce on the grounds of cruelty, insanity or conviction for a criminal offence, though a judicial separation might be allowed on those grounds. From 1938, 'cruelty' was accepted as grounds for divorce, and definitions of 'cruelty' might include habitual drunkenness or criminal convictions. In the later nineteenth century there were a number of legal disputes over whether people married in England could seek an 'easier' Scottish divorce, and for many years the English courts refused to recognize the dissolution of marriages made in England but ended in Scotland, unless the couple could prove that they were genuinely living in Scotland. But the figures show that few took advantage of this. Although the law gave equal rights to both sexes, in practice most divorce cases were brought by women, except during and after the World Wars, probably because in this period there were more hasty marriages, followed by servicemen divorcing unfaithful wives. Before the Second World War, the Registrar General for Scotland was concerned with divorce mainly in individual cases that demanded his attention. A law of 1600 forbade anyone divorced on grounds of adultery to marry the third person named in the divorce suit. A child born to an adulterous couple would be illegitimate in Scotland, even if they had gone through a form of marriage after the divorce. The usual way round this, if the divorcing couple agreed, was for the third party not to be named in the decree of divorce, though the courts frowned on this. Local registrars, who often knew their communities well, were uneasy when 'guilty' couples wished to marry. The Registrar General advised them that if the third person had not been named in the divorce case, there was nothing the registrar

could do about it, and he would have to register the marriage. When discussing the forthcoming census of 1911, the Royal Statistical Society suggested that the 'marital status' section should include divorce as a separate category - previously, the only official states were single, married, or widowed. The Registrar General for Scotland's representative did not think that such an addition was necessary. He argued that divorced persons would probably not tell the truth, because of the social stigma, and that in any case, information about this small group of divorced people would not reveal anything about the much large numbers of people who were unofficially separated and living with new partners. Divorce did not enter the census schedules until 1921, when the divorce figures were rising.

The Census
A census of the British population, providing the government with information about every man, woman and child in the country on a specified evening, has been carried out every ten years since 1801, except for 1941 when wartime conditions made it impossible. In 1841 and 1851, the General Register Office for England oversaw arrangements for taking the census in Scotland. By 1861, Scotland had its own General Register Office to assume this role, and the following section explores some of the problems encountered by the GROS staff in carrying out their first census. The new Registrar General for Scotland, William Pitt Dundas, had no prior experience of census administration and was

slow to commence preparations, only just managing to get the necessary materials printed and distributed to remote areas of the country in time. Although very few householders refused to participate in the census (and those who did were soon brought into line by the threat of a fine), the enumerators appointed to distribute and collect the householders' schedules experienced other difficulties, such as householders' illiteracy and unfamiliarity with English. And these were not the only challenges with which Pitt Dundas and his Superintendent of Statistics, James Stark, were faced. On top of his regular duties, Stark was tasked with tabulating the census data and preparing the official census report for submission to Parliament. All this work had to be done manually, and as Stark's staff in the Statistical Branch of the GROS comprised only three clerks, extra help was needed. Pitt Dundas initially received Treasury permission to employ a total of six temporary staff for the census, including junior clerks, superior clerks and two overseers or superintendents, with the option of engaging an additional six clerks later on. As in England, the candidates for these positions had to pass Civil Service examinations in handwriting, orthography, elementary arithmetic and copying before they could be appointed. Delays occurred because some of the first six men nomined by Pitt Dundas failed the examination, meaning that new candidates had to be found and sent up for examination. The twelve-man census staff was not in full working order until August 1861, and then still more clerks were required, Pitt Dundas requesting another eight in September 1861, and a further four in April 1862. Thanks to these additional pairs of hands, work on the census of 1861 was finally completed on 10 February 1864.

The Enumerators
The census was taken on the evening of Sunday 7 April, 1861. Some weeks earlier, Scotland's 1001 registrars of births, deaths and marriages had been ordered to split their respective parishes into small enumeration divisions, and appoint an enumerator for every division. The enumerators' job was to call at each dwelling, give a blank census schedule to every householder, and remind them to fill in the requisite information on census night; to collect the completed schedules on the morning of 8 April and, if any remained empty, to fill them in on the householders' behalf; to transcribe the contents of all the completed schedules into an enumeration book; and finally, to prepare summaries of the total numbers of houses, persons in houses, persons not in houses, and males and females temporarily absent or present in their division. The instructions issued to registrars explained that: 'The Enumerator, in order to fulfil his duties properly, must be a person of intelligence and activity: he must read and write well, and have some knowledge of arithmetic: he must not be infirm, nor of such weak health as may render him unable to undergo the requisite exertion: he should not be younger than eighteen years of age, nor older than sixty-five: he must be temperate, orderly, and respectable, and be such a person as is likely to conduct himself with strict propriety, and to deserve the good-will of the inhabitants of his District. He should also be well acquainted with the District in which he will be required to act, and it will be an additional recommendation if his occupations have been in any degree of a similar kind.'

But it proved very difficult to recruit enumerators who answered this description. In rural areas, suitably educated men were often in short supply. The fee offered, 1 10s, was also substantially less than the enumerators had earned at the previous census of 1851, prompting many experienced men to refuse the job. As a result, Pitt Dundas was deluged with correspondence from anxious registrars who were struggling to secure good candidates. Several registrars, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, were forced to recruit men from outside their own parish boundaries, and others served as enumerators themselves to make up the numbers. Although the full complement of 8,075 enumerators was eventually secured, they were of varying abilities and occupational backgrounds, ranging from accountants and surveyors in Perth, to fish curers and foresters in Uig. The published census report makes no mention of problems in procuring sufficient enumerators, or of the fact that many were not of the desired calibre; but anyone using the census data for research needs to be aware of this, as it must have affected the quality and accuracy of the information gathered. In the weeks approaching the census night, all registrars were obliged to check that the enumerators had read their instructions and knew what was expected of them. As we shall see, however, many of the registrars were mistaken or unclear about how certain columns of the householders' schedule should be completed, so they may not have advised their enumerators correctly.

Children Attending School

The Scottish census schedule for 1861 required each householder to state the number of children under his or her roof, aged from 5 to 15 inclusive, who had attended school during the week preceding 7 April; but people's understanding of the term 'school' varied considerably. Several registrars asked Pitt Dundas whether children taught at home by governesses should be considered as attending school, and were told that they should not. The registrar of Sanday asked whether children who attended day schools should be counted, or only those at boarding establishments, and was advised to include both groups. Another confusing point, and one on which Pitt Dundas actually changed his mind, was whether or not to count children attending only Sabbath schools for religious instruction. On 28 March, Pitt Dundas assured the registrar of Lesmahagow that such children should be included. Yet a few days later, the registrar of Hamilton warned that if this course were followed, 'a most erroneous result will be obtained as to the real state of education in Scotland, as a very small proportion indeed of Sabbath School Children are attending School during the week.' He urged Pitt Dundas to reconsider the matter, 'so that we may be able to guide our enumerators properly.' Soon afterwards, the registrars of Hamilton and Lesmahagow both received letters indicating that 'the Registrar General has come to the conclusion that children attending a Sabbath School ought not to be taken into account along with other school children in the last Column of the Householders Schedule.' But the other 999 registrars were not officially informed of this decision. Consequently, many enumerators and householders would have followed the old instructions, or relied upon their own interpretations of the term 'school', when completing the schedules. In rural and island parishes, the customary April school holidays to allow children to assist with agricultural tasks posed another quandary for registrars and enumerators. The registrar of Unst told Pitt

Dundas that: 'at this season, most of the children who have attended School during winter, leave for the labours of the field. In the five schools in Unst perhaps there will not be a single Scholar on 6th April. How is this to be met? Will it answer the purpose intended to give the number of Scholars who have attended School during the winter quarter between the ages specified in the Schedule?' The Registrar General's Secretary, George Seton, replied that only those children who physically attended school during the week preceding 7 April should be entered. Yet when the registrar of Yarrow explained that the parish school would be on holiday from 5-9 April and asked if the number of scholars present on 4 April should be entered instead, Pitt Dundas agreed! Such inconsistency must have affected the census figures. The reason for including this column in the schedule had been to discover the number of children who were 'receiving instruction in the ordinary branches of education'; but, as the published census report admitted, the wording of the column served to exclude children who were absent for more than a week from sickness, who could not attend school because it was closed for the holidays, or who were educated privately at home. Anyone using the 1861 census to research the history of education in a particular locality or to track levels of school attendance over time should therefore treat the recorded figures with caution, and always seek corroboration from other sources.

Number of Windowed Rooms

To satisfy the desire of social and sanitary reformers for statistics showing the number of persons to each room, and the extent of ventilation in Scottish homes, the 1861 census schedule required each householder to state the number of windowed rooms in their dwelling. There was much confusion about how to reckon this figure, and some people probably wrote down the total number of windows, instead of the number of rooms with windows. Several registrars queried the very definition of a window, particularly where Highland cottages were concerned. The registrar of Kirkton, near Thurso, wrote to Pitt Dundas: 'In this District there are many of the Straw Thatched Houses of the small Tenants & others, lighted only by a small sky light with only one pane of glass, and many others have only a very small window-frame in the wall, without any glass, but fitted with a Board or Boards Opening on hinges. Are these to be reckoned as windows in the sense of the Act?' The official response to these and similar queries was that an aperture had to be glazed to qualify as a window, and not, as the Registrar General emphasized, 'a mere hole in the wall.'
(Image: Highland cottage, by permission of Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.)

Doubts about what constituted a room prompted a further flurry of queries. Did a passage or lobby count? What about pantries, kitchens and similar apartments used for purposes other than sleeping or sitting? And did an apartment require a fireplace to qualify as a room? The official replies to these questions were no, yes, and no respectively. Some of the Highland registrars also enquired whether the characteristic 'but and ben' cottage, with one of its two apartments forming the family dwelling and the other the husband's workshop, should be entered as having one, or two windowed rooms. They were told to consider these as having only one room, because the workshop was used solely for the purposes of trade; but registrars who did not write to the Registrar General for clarification could easily have reached the opposite conclusion and advised their enumerators and householders to put down two windowed rooms. Despite the confusion, the GROS did not issue any general notice of clarification to all the registrars. No wonder, then, that when the Sheriff Clerk at Lochmaddy cast his eye over the completed census documents for that locality, he found: 'the great majority of Enumerators have put down these apartments . . . as rooms having windows, while others have not thought these openings deserving the name of windows and have not, in a whole division, entered one house as having a window.'

Language and Literacy

In the Highlands and Islands, the fact that most people spoke only Gaelic and could neither write nor read English obliged the enumerators to fill in almost every householder's schedule themselves. The Registrar General for England and Wales had provided a Welsh translation of the schedule for every census since 1841, and in 1861 it was suggested that the Scottish Registrar General might supply a similar translation for native Gaelic speakers; but for reasons of time, economy and convenience, Pitt Dundas decided against this. If native Gaelic speakers could not comprehend the schedule, the enumerator had to obtain the necessary particulars from them verbally and write them in himself. This meant firstly translating the English questions into Gaelic, then the Gaelic responses into English. Unless the enumerator possessed sufficient linguistic abilities and interpretational skills, misconceptions might easily occur and unintentional errors creep into the schedule, perhaps never to be picked up. As we have seen, the registrars struggled to procure suitably qualified enumerators and not all of them would have been expert in both languages. The registrars themselves, whose regular duty involved translating and recording in English the details of any births, deaths and marriages reported to them in Gaelic, ought to have been well practised in this, and their personal knowledge of parishioners' social and familial circumstances ought also to have alerted them to any obvious misconceptions arising from anglicization. However, some of them were not renowned for their own accuracy and it is unlikely that every registrar checked his enumerators' work scrupulously. Users of the census, especially if searching for a particular ancestor, should remember that householders' illiteracy and/or unfamiliarity with English could affect the appearance of the returns, and that these householders had to rely on enumerators, whose handwriting, spelling and comprehension were not always much better than their own, to convey the necessary information.

Omissions From the Census

Particularly in the large cities of Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, enumerators were sometimes guilty of omitting households from the census returns. Although the registrars were supposed to check for any such omissions, these sometimes went undetected until the householders concerned complained that they had been left out. The Glasgow Herald of 9 April published a letter from one indignant gentleman, enquiring: 'whether . . . the officials employed in distributing the schedules were furnished with any list of the householders, ratepayers, &c., or were they just left to grope their way through every domicile they could find? I take the liberty of putting this query principally because I, occupying with my family a house of six apartments, have never been favoured with a visit from any such official, or seen such a thing as a schedule at all. It is not at all likely that mine is a solitary case - (indeed, I have heard of several others) - and were there only one such in every street, it would materially affect the "truth of the whole."' Another letter, printed in the Scotsman, insisted that the Edinburgh census had been 'completely bungled', and that many households were missed out because the enumerators had been 'very much underpaid, and they either did not do their duty at all or they did it ill'. Leaving aside groups such as vagrants and travellers, who were always difficult to enumerate, such comments beg the question of how many other householders and their families may have been left out of the 1861 census. For the lower classes, filling in the householders' schedule (or dictating the answers to an enumerator) must have seemed a troublesome task for no reward, and, rather than drawing attention to the fact, they might simply have kept quiet if they never received a schedule. It is essential that users of the census, especially those interested in the growth and development of particular towns and parishes, or those puzzled about missing ancestors who they had expected to find, should understand this, as the published census reports make no reference to omissions at all, and do not tell the whole story.

Subsequent Censuses
Having negotiated a steep learning curve during the census of 1861, Pitt Dundas and Stark were better prepared for the next one in 1871. The Census Office was also more adequately staffed, with 24 clerks from the outset, but production of the census report was delayed once again, Stark being by this time in poor health and absent from the office on several occasions. In March 1874, Pitt Dundas had to inform the Treasury that the report would not be ready until at least May, explaining that it 'has no doubt been much retarded by Dr Stark's repeated and prolonged illnesses'. This placed Pitt Dundas in a difficult position with the Treasury, and tested his already strained relationship with Stark to the limit - after failing to persuade him to resign on grounds of ill health, he finally forced Stark to do so.

As we would expect, the information requested in the householders' schedule expanded and changed with each census - in 1921, for example, the column for marital status included an option for 'Divorced' for the first time. Each successive census also brought its own problems and challenges for the GROS, such as the use of Hollerith machines to speed up the process of calculation.
(Image: 'Dundee Suffragettes Resist the Census,' by permission of Dundee Central Library.)

When the 1911 census was being taken, suffragettes in many parts of Britain staged protests, arguing that since they were not recognized as citizens and were not allowed to vote, they had no duty to be counted in the national census. In London, a large suffragette procession marched through the streets, but in Dundee (where the suffragettes probably wisely decided to protest indoors), several gathered in their offices and sat there through the night to avoid being counted at their homes. The illustration shows them engaged in their 'stopout' protest. And in 1941, Britain was at war and the census was suspended altogether.

Health and Disease

Although legal considerations were probably uppermost in the minds of those who framed the Scottish Registration Act of 1854, the importance of vital statistics in public health was also widely appreciated. There was a growing 'statistical movement' in Europe, where pioneer statisticians such as the Belgian Alphonse Quetelet argued that accurate national statistics were of enormous importance to the state. Medical men were amongst the warmest supporters of the Scottish Registration Act, believing that Scotland was disadvantaged because it had not immediately followed the English example in recording vital statistics.

In the years leading up to the Scottish Registration Act of 1854, several prominent members of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, particularly Professor William Pulteney Alison of the University of Edinburgh, made it clear that they did not approve of William Farr's method of classifying deaths in the statistical returns of the Registrar General for England and Wales. The Royal College had been pushing vigorously for Scottish registration since 1841, but did not want to adopt the 'errors' of the English model. In 1847 they passed a resolution: 'That it is the opinion of this College that any Registers of diseases, drawn up according to the forms now in use under the authority of the Registrar General in England, will necessarily be fallacious - and that by an alteration of the Schedule employed for the purpose, and by the use of a Shorter and simpler nomenclature of diseases, Registers of Mortality might easily be framed in Scotland, admitting of easy comparison with those in England, but greatly surpassing them in precision and scientific value.' Although the mortality statistics of England and Scotland look much the same on the surface, there were different principles underlying the ways they were reported. The statistical tables deal with the same issues of birth, marriage and death, broken down into the main administrative areas of the two countries, and relate them to the estimated size of population. But the way in which they are grouped in the textual section of the annual reports is entirely different. The difference reflected a semi-public warfare between the two Superintendents of Statistics in London and Edinburgh. William Farr, who was much involved with the sanitary movement in England, organized his statistics to emphasize the difference between mortality rates in town and country, and compared a group of four 'healthy towns' with the worst ones. He wanted to support the movement for better sanitation, and he accepted the 'miasmatic' theory that linked epidemic disease to the stench of filthy cities.

James Stark, like other leading members of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, had different views of the causes of disease, and they stressed the factors of cold, hunger and poor housing. Stark therefore divided Scotland into 'Three Great Divisions, the Insular, the Mainland, and the Town District.'
(Image: Old town, Edinburgh, by permission of Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.)

This allowed Stark to compare mortality in town and country, as Farr did, but it additionally took

account of his view that climatic conditions in the different parts of Scotland also affected mortality. Very roughly, the Farr view might be said to concentrate on sanitation, and the Stark view on standards of living and the rigours of the Scottish climate. In a period when there was no knowledge of the relation of micro-organisms to disease, both approaches had much to commend them, and they were not, in fact, mutually exclusive, but the debate between the two Superintendents of Statistics became quite cantankerous. Stark, influenced by Professor Alison, believed that it was impossible under Scottish conditions to be very accurate about causes of death until all deaths were certified by doctors. At the time when registration began, this looked unlikely because many people could not afford to call a doctor when they fell ill, and there was also a shortage of doctors in rural areas. To avoid some of the problems caused by vague descriptions of causes of death given by family members, Stark recommended a rather unwieldy system where diseases were classified by their 'seat' or position in the body. Hence pneumonia should be classified under diseases of the chest, which any layman could do, and a more precise classification could then be made by the doctor who had attended the deceased, if a doctor had been present. One of the main objections to Farr's classification was that it tended to emphasize the immediate rather than the underlying cause of death. For example, complications of pregnancy and childbirth might be classified under (say) haemorrhage, which would distort the statistics of maternal mortality. The two Superintendents of Statistics even disagreed over hydrophobia (rabies). Farr called it a 'zymotic' disease, due to a poison in the blood, while Stark favoured classifying it as an act of violence, due to the bite of an animal. The two sets of national statistics on death registration differed quite markedly in the 1860s and 1870s, because Stark would not accept Farr's insertion of 'miasmatic' diseases into the list of causes of death. In 1861 Farr decided to alter the English classifications into even more complex groupings. The Edinburgh school favoured simpler classification, and Farr accused Stark of avoiding complexity simply because of the extra work involved in producing the statistical tables. There was some truth in this, because the General Register Office in Edinburgh was very small, the annual reports had to be kept fairly short for financial reasons, and Stark was always some years behind with them. Stark was so annoyed with Farr's new system that he refused to adopt it, and made a public attack on Farr in the Glasgow Medical Journal of 1865: ' . . . a Statistical Classification has to deal with facts, and not with theories.'

Stark was scornful of Farr's 'miasmatic' approach, arguing that Highland crofters lived in overcrowded huts with dirt floors adjoining the cowshed, in a dreadful 'miasma' of animal excrement, but that their death rate was still lower than that of townsmen.
(Image: Raasay croft, courtesy of Dundee University Archives.)

The fight continued until the successors of Farr and Stark began to use systems related to the classification of diseases produced by the Royal College of Physicians of London, who included Edinburgh representatives in their discussions. By the early twentieth century, greater understanding of disease causation, and pressure for an internationally accepted list of the causes of death drew them closer together, though even in the early decades of the twentieth century, James Craufurd Dunlop, as Scottish Superintendent of Statistics, was still insisting that the Scottish method of emphasizing the underlying cause of death was the best way to proceed. Statistics on infant mortality, later joined by statistics on stillbirth, were still regarded as the major indexes of national health, though they were joined by other sources, such as reports of the Medical Officers of Health, and, from the early twentieth century, the reports of the medical inspectors of schoolchildren.

Vaccination
Vaccination against smallpox was one of the first major achievements of modern medicine, stemming from Edward Jenner's experiments in 1796. Vaccination spread rapidly through Western Europe, and epidemics of this dangerous and disfiguring disease greatly diminished. But it was not easy to ensure that vaccination was well advertised and easily available, and that the lymph needed for the vaccine was effective and safe. Although many people wanted vaccination for their children, particularly when an epidemic threatened, the poor had to rely on charitable organizations or, occasionally, the Poor Law authorities, to provide a vaccination service. Others had to pay their own doctors. The reform of the

English Poor Law in 1834, followed by the Registration Act of 1836, gave England a basis for a public vaccination service, and in 1840 the first Vaccination Act enabled the new Poor Law guardians to set up public vaccination services, usually through their own Poor Law medical officers. A year later, this service became free. Vaccination was not compulsory in England until 1853, when the law began to involve the local registrars of births, marriages and deaths. The registrars gave blank vaccination certificates to parents of newly born children, who had to return them within a specified time, signed by a medical man to indicate a successful vaccination, or face a fine. Further legislation in 1867 tried to tighten up the law: to force guardians to provide adequate services, to compel doctors to fill in the certificates efficiently, and, in particular, to make guardians prosecute parents who did not have their infants vaccinated. In spite of all this, there were few prosecutions, many children were not vaccinated, and during the smallpox epidemic in 1871, over 23,000 people died. Although vaccination by government-controlled lymph was a fairly safe process, alarm over the small number of deaths of children following vaccination, together with dislike of the Poor Law connections of public vaccination, made many people suspicious of vaccination, and anti-vaccination campaigns were vigorous and well publicized. As with other aspects of registration, Scotland was slow to follow England, but then tried to improve on the English model. The English Vaccination Act of 1840 could not have been applied to Scotland, which at that time had neither substantial Poor Law authorities, nor registrars. Many highland parishes did not even have a resident doctor, and some small parishes were too poor to pay a Poor Law medical officer. The Board of Supervision, introduced in Scotland by the Poor Law reforms of 1845 to administer the Poor Law, tried to persuade parishes to provide free vaccination services, with very patchy success. With the coming of local registrars and registration examiners in 1855, there was at least a machinery for supervising the system, but the first registration examiners were discouraged by what they saw. Alfred List wrote in his first examiner's report that: 'England enjoys the benefit of repeated Vaccination Acts, which impose a duty upon parents, the neglect of which is punishable; yet poor Scotland has never been deemed worthy of such favourable consideration! The health of her children is consigned to the care of the Board of Supervision! Are the lives of her people less valuable than those of the inhabitants of the sister Kingdom? Or are there circumstances so adverse as to prevent legislation for this sanitary purpose?' When Scotland did finally get a Vaccination Act in 1863, it was quite different from the English system. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and other medical bodies in Scotland successfully lobbied to detach vaccination from the Poor Law, and although the parish authorities paid doctors to vaccinate the very poor, parents could go to any doctor of their choice, and were charged a small fee for vaccination. As in England, there was a fine for parents who failed to have their infants vaccinated. The Board of Supervision supplied doctors with lymph, and parish authorities were responsible for prosecuting defaulting parents, but the public did not associate vaccination with the Poor Law.

Scottish registrars seem to have been diligent in chasing up parents who failed to have their children vaccinated, and the number of prosecutions was small. Since many registrars were parish schoolmasters, they were probably well aware of the threat of epidemics in the schools, and were in a good position to put pressure on parents. They sometimes had to sort out arguments between parents and doctors, and on one occasion the Registrar General had to admonish a doctor who refused to hand over a vaccination certificate until the parents paid his fee. The examiners also took a dim view of doctors who allowed vaccination to be done by midwives in order to save themselves trouble and travelling expenses. Even though the service was not free for everyone, the Scots seem to have accepted vaccination fairly willingly, though as usual, there were great difficulties in reaching certain sections of the population, such as travelling tinkers and other itinerants. Some of the highland and island parishes had no doctor, and special efforts had to be made to reach them. The remote island of St Kilda, its hardy population cut off from the mainland by dangerous waters, remained unvaccinated until efforts were made to reach the population in 1873 after the Free Church minister (one of only two English speakers on the island), implored the Home Office to intervene. St Kilda, though nominally in the parish of Harris, had no Poor Law arrangements, and its laird, Macleod of Macleod, sent a boat over from Skye with supplies only twice a year. A naval vessel was diverted to St Kilda carrying a doctor from Skye, 73 vaccinations were carried out, and a lengthy dispute broke out between the laird, the parochial board of Harris, the Board of Supervision, and the Home Office, over who should pay the doctor's expenses. The Treasury finally authorized the Board of Supervision to pay him, but not as much as he asked. In spite of all these efforts, there were always people who refused vaccination, sometimes for religious principles, or because they were worried about the possible side-effects. Doctors could postpone vaccinating a sick baby, but only for two months. If a father persistently refused vaccination in spite of warnings from the registrar, he could receive regular fines of 1 a time, or, if he could not pay, 10 days in prison. One better-off Glasgow citizen wrote to the Registrar General in 1893: 'I have three times been fined in the Glasgow Sheriff Court for not having my boy, now nearly 5 years old, vaccinated . . . The Barony Parochial Board here know that it is not my intention to have any of my children vaccinated, and this not from any religious 'fad' or peculiar view, but simply because I prefer not to take the physical risk involved in the operation. They deplore, almost as much as I do, the fact of my repeated prosecutions, but say that, so long as my name is returned by the Registrar as a defaulter, they have no option but to prosecute.' In 1907 the law was amended to permit 'conscientious objection' to vaccination, at a time when the threat from smallpox had greatly diminished. If a father affirmed before a magistrate that he objected to vaccination because he believed it threatened the health of his child, and paid a fee, he would receive a certificate to take to the registrar and vaccination was not enforced. This was national legislation, and although some Parliamentarians tried to persuade the government to allow mothers to carry out this procedure, because fathers could not always get time off work, this request was refused. Only unmarried mothers or widows, or women whose husbands were abroad for a long period, were allowed

to object in their own right. Compulsory vaccination for smallpox was discontinued in the UK in 1948, and the registrars were finally relieved of their duty to log successful vaccinations and conscientious objections. There was a small outbreak in Glasgow in 1950, but in 1978 the World Health Organisation announced that the smallpox virus had been eradicated globally.

War and National Registration

During the First World War, the activities of the General Register Office for Scotland expanded as it was drawn into the war effort, particularly after the National Registration Act was passed on 15 July 1915. This Act required a Register of every adult in the country between the ages of 15 and 65, but was vague about how it would be set up and maintained. Bernard Mallet, the Registrar General for England, devised a complicated system for a Register in each local authority. On Registration Day, 15 August 1915, everyone within the specified age group was to complete a form giving their name, age, nationality, marital status and employment details. In England, the forms were organised locally, and

filed first by occupational group, and then alphabetically by name within each occupation. But in Scotland, where the Registrar General set up his own system, all forms were held centrally in Edinburgh, and were organised alphabetically, rather than by occupation. This led to tensions between the General Register Office in London and its Scottish counterpart. Mallet's system shows more clearly why the Register was set up, and the motivation behind it became increasingly obvious during the autumn of 1915. The National Registration Bill was pushed through Parliament as a way of dealing with the labour crisis, because essential industries were left without key workers after the rush of volunteers to the Front. The government was also keen to identify so-called 'shirkers' and 'slackers' who were not doing their duty for the war effort. The Register was further intended to assist in efficient deployment of labour as the government imposed more controls on the workforce, and the forms listed any alternative trades for each individual, whether current or not. When the Register was set up, some feared, justifiably, that it would be used for military conscription. The information on the Register about all males aged between 19 and 41 was copied onto pink forms, with men in essential industries being 'starred' for exemption from military service. The pink forms were then handed to the military authorities for recruitment purposes. Recruiting officers would pay up to three visits to men who had not enlisted, and inquire about the reasons why they had not joined up, a tactic that pressured men to enlist. Inevitably, the Register was also used when conscription was introduced in 1916.

The Scottish Register

The Scots created their own card index and organized their Register alphabetically before the plans for the pink forms became clear. Fulfilling Mallet's instructions for the pink forms led to a good deal of extra work for the GROS staff, who often worked 13-hour days in the early stages of setting up the Register. Senior GROS staff also had reservations about their role in classifying occupations. James Craufurd Dunlop, the Superintendent of Statistics, explained that this duty went well beyond the legal remit of his office, since classifying occupations effectively determined who was sent to the Front and who was exempt. Staff in the General Register Office therefore made decisions that might be, literally, a matter of life or death, yet years of experience in compiling the census had taught them how difficult it was to be precise in classifying occupations based on what people wrote about their work. Some odd decisions were taken on the basis of the Register. In February 1916, a firm of electrical engineers questioned why, when all their men had given the same job description on their forms, all the contractors had been 'starred,' but not the senior manager, who was crucial in organizing the work of the firm. There was confusion about some of the job descriptions, because words that were obsolete in England were still used in Scotland, for example, 'hind' to refer to a skilled farm worker. Dunlop also asked that the term 'lunatic' be replaced by 'insane' on the Register, as being 'more modern and up-todate'. Correspondence about jobs gives an interesting insight into perceptions of gender roles: in discussing the categorization of milkers, Dunlop stated that this was clearly a woman's job. And there was the question of how accurate statistics produced from the National Register were: as Patten MacDougall, the Registrar General for Scotland pointed out,

'. . . human tendency is not to minimise the nature of the personal occupation'. There may have been some national feeling behind the reluctance of the GROS to become too closely involved with recruitment. Scots were already found in the armed services in disproportionate numbers, and Scotland produced a substantial amount of material necessary for war, in heavy industry and in agriculture. The first rush of volunteers to enlist had put much pressure on these vital sections of the economy. A rather jaundiced note in the GROS in 1915 stated that Scotland had already been 'thoroughly skinned' by the recruiting officers.

Extra Work for Registrars

The National Register was also used to keep track of rationing. The Ministry of Food had its own index for keeping track of people, but relied on the local registrars to make sure that parents of newborn children applied for a ration card for their son or daughter, and the registrars also collected the ration cards of people who had died, to prevent others using them. A few registrars took this duty so seriously that they refused to register a death until the ration card was produced, but they were corrected in this matter. Nonetheless, by 1918, the Scots were proud of the efficiency and accuracy of their Register, although they did not support Mallet's proposals to continue it in peacetime. Opposition to continuing the Register was driven by cost - the GROS was overstretched by the demands of National Registration and liberal opposition to extending the boundaries of the state (there are similar arguments today about the introduction of identity cards). Senior staff at the GROS believed that the purpose of their office was to collect and report on vital statistics, and so it should remain. By the end of the war registrars were exhausted by their additional duties, and were complaining of all the extra work they had to do without an increase in their fees. The GROS was also at full stretch, since several of its staff volunteered for active service, and it was during this period that the English and Scottish Registrars General reluctantly accepted that women could work both in the General Register Offices, and as local registrars. The registrars took on the same tasks in the Second World War. This time, conscription, rationing and identity cards were introduced at the beginning of the war, and the sense of national emergency was overwhelming, so that there was less argument about the purpose of the National Register; but it too was dropped when rationing ended. During both wars, the registrars had to carry out their usual task of keeping track of the British population, though this was often difficult, given the greater mobility of the people in times of war. The registrars recorded the vital events of refugees, and the GROS transmitted information about the deaths of German and Italian prisoners of war to their home countries. The registrars were not responsible for keeping track of military casualties, since this was the duty of the War Office, but they worked with the legal authorities to identify bodies of all nations, victims of the naval war, who were washed ashore on

the Scottish coast. This was not always possible, and the legacy can be seen in coastal kirkyards like that on the small island of Colonsay, with its graves of sailors, 'known only to God.'

The Records

Family History
The registers of vital events in Scotland are held in the General Register Office for Scotland, and many are available online at ScotlandsPeople. They are also available via a dedicated Family History Centre in Edinburgh, a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland, and the Court of the Lord Lyon.
(Image: Duplicate registers in the General Register Office for Scotland, by kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.)

Local archives in Scotland also hold a wealth of details of interest to family historians. A full guide to Scottish archives may be found on ARCHON. Family historians may also find the GRO1 series useful (see below) for information on a particular parish. If your ancestors include a registrar (nearly always the village schoolmaster), the GRO1 series will almost certainly have information about him.

Social History and History of Registration

The main source of information for these web pages is the GRO series in the National Archives of

Scotland. A list of the documents in this series is available in their online catalogue. Specific subjects in the series, particularly for the twentieth century, are fairly easy to find if they relate to specific tasks of the Registrar General, such as the census.
(Image: Haymaking, from the James Paterson Collection, by permission of Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.)

Although the GRO series contains the most detailed material, there are other relevant papers in the National Archives for Scotland, for example, the AD (Lord Advocate) series, which includes some of the Registrar General's correspondence. Since the early Registrars General also held the post of Deputy Clerk Register (now the Keeper of the Records of Scotland), there is also relevant correspondence in the SRO (Scottish Record Office) series. The GRO series is very bulky, and contains much fascinating historical information. It has material relating to social history, to medical history, to local history and to family history. It is far more extensive than the records of the Registrar General for England, since these have been weeded and less of the nineteenth-century correspondence survives. Although some of the material in the GRO series relates to very specific registration issues, and to staff in the GROS, the notes below indicate some of the sources of wider interest. GRO1

The most valuable records for the early registration period are the reports and memorandum books of the registration examiners. These contain a wealth of social information about individual parishes, mainly for the 1860s and 1870s.
(Image: From the James Paterson Collection, by permission of Glasgow University Library, Department of Special Collections.)

The GRO catalogue lists these records by year, with the reports for each individual year being bound into volumes. It does not list the names of the examiners, nor indicate which districts are covered in each volume. The volumes themselves have a list of places visited by the examiners, making them easier to use for local history purposes. A list of the early examiners and their districts is given on the examiners page of this site. Most of the early examiners wrote in considerable detail, and expressed

their personal views in an uninhibited way. They were very happy to pass judgment on the morals and behaviour not only of local registrars, but of whole communities! Here is a sample of an examiner's view of certain fishing communities in North-East Scotland: 'I have often been struck, while examining the Registers of Parishes situated on the Sea Coast, with the names of the fishermen being peculiar to certain localities. For instance the inhabitants of Avoch are distinguished by the name "Patience." The same characteristic exists in such places as Nairn, Cromarty &c. However distant the places may be, where their avocation leads them, they invariably return home to their families, to get married, or to spend the rest of their time in drinking, inhabiting the same places generation after generation.' By the late nineteenth century, the examiners still carried out inspections of local register offices, but by this stage they were using a checklist, and their comments are less frequent. These are carried over into GRO2, but a number of these files are closed to the public because they are less than 100 years old and contain sensitive information or data relating to named individuals. They concentrate on the registrars rather than the district. The examiners of the later period were particularly concerned about the competence of women registrars, who were employed from World War I onwards, as in the following report from 1919: 'Registration is not a light and easy task for the old lady who acts as Registrar of this parish; the work of the Registers required a good deal of dressing and over 50 clerical errors were recorded. It is recognised, however, that the Registrar is doing her best to carry out the duties of an office for which she may not be well-fitted, but for which few aspirants of a suitable kind would be available in the district.' GRO1 also includes the letter books of correspondence to and from the Registrar General's Office. For most of the nineteenth century they are simply bound in (very) large volumes, with separate books for the incoming and outgoing correspondence. Within each book, letters are filed in the order they were received or sent. Some are organized by type of correspondent: for example, GRO1/134 contains correspondence from local registrars. A few are dedicated to specific subjects, particularly the censuses. Although each of these volumes has an index of correspondents, they are not easy to use. Not only are they very large and cumbersome to handle, but the way in which the letters are filed makes each volume a kind of lucky dip, and it is not very easy to match a letter in the incoming volume to the reply in the outgoing volume. They are easiest to use for subjects that are related to specific dates, such as vaccination acts and the census, but there is an enormous amount of information in them. They deal wth a wide variety of social subjects, from parishes throughout Scotland, and are an unjustly neglected source in nineteenth-century Scottish history. Many of Scotland's citizens wrote letters to the Registrar General concerning their personal problems, and their letters are a fascinating window on social attitudes and family relationships. Local registrars also wrote in about conditions in their own district, and these

letters too are a valuable historical source. GRO5 The Registrar General's correspondence for the twentieth century is much easier to use, since it is filed by subjects that can be easily identified in the online catalogue, such as 'stillbirth', 'divorce', and so on. A number of these files are closed for 100 years if they refer to named individuals. Published Material The annual reports of the Registrars General, details from the censuses, and much detailed information from both England and Scotland, are available via the invaluable HISTPOP (Online Historical Population Reports), mounted by the University of Essex.

Detailed Research
The authors of this website have produced more detailed work on certain aspects of the history of registration in Scotland, and this page offers copies of some of these works and links to others. It will be added to from time to time. To access these papers, click on the underlined sections. 1. For a full report of papers delivered at a symposium on the comparative history of registration in Scotland and England, see 'Birth pains and death throes: the creation of vital statistics in Scotland and England'. A symposium

supported by the Wellcome Trust, arising from the 'Scottish Way of Birth and Death' Project, Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Glasgow, 2004. 2. On the old parish registers Cameron, A., 'The fate of the old parish registers under the Registration Act of 1854', Scottish Archives 14 (2008). This is a pdf file of the unedited typescript of this paper. 3. On the making of the Registration Act of 1854 Cameron, A., 'The Establishment of Civil Registration in Scotland', The Historical Journal, 50.2 (2007), pp.377-395. This article is available online in PubMed Cameron, A., 'Medicine, Meteorology and Vital Statistics: the Influence of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Upon Scottish Civil Registration, c.1840-1855', The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 37.2 (2007), pp.173-180 (open access online journal). 4. On English and Scottish debates over death registration Crowther, A., 'By death divided. C19th Scottish & English approaches to death certification' 5. On War and National Registration Elliot, R., 'An Early Experiment in National Identity Cards: the Battle Over Registration in the First World War', Twentieth Century British History, 17.2 (2006), pp.145-176. This article is available online in PubMed 6. On issues surrounding medical certification of deaths Davis, G., '"Dead man knocking" - issues surrounding medical certification of death in Scotland, c.1893-1960'. Davis, G., 'Stillbirth registration and perceptions of infant death, 1900-60: the Scottish case in national context', Economic History Review, 62.3 (August 2009), pp 629-654). This article will shortly be available in PubMed 7. Index to the textual section of the annual reports of the Registrar General for Scotland, 1856-

1939 An index to the textual section of the annual reports was compiled by Francesc Marischal for the project. It may be of assistance to those consulting the reports for their own research, and is available for download in a zipped MS ACCESS file here. It is accompanied by a zipped Word file of a handbook explaining the construction and use of the database. You will need to save the file to your computer and open it with a zip programme, such as the freeware available from ZipCentral: Detailed annual reports database

Further Reading
General Surveys There are two excellent introductory guides to the history of registration in Scotland and in England. For Scotland: Cecil Sinclair, Jock Tamson's Bairns: A History of the Records of the General Register Office for

For England: Edward Higgs, Life, Death and Statistics: Civil Registration, Censuses and the Work of the General Register Office, 1836-1952 (Hatfield, 2004). Costs 12.50 if ordered direct from Local Population Studies (inquiries to lps@herts.ac.uk)

For those requiring a more detailed list of works relating to registration and associated demographic issues for Scotland and England, a pdf. file is available: Selected Bibliography