Scotland the World Over

Scotland the World Over...



ALBA GU BRAGH...!!! :)

Chris

Scottish independence

Unless your head has been in the sand, you cannot have failed to notice that a major political debate is currently rearing its head concerning the future of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with Scotland almost certain to have a referendum on independence within the next two or three years – depending on whether either First Minister Alex Salmond or Prime Minister David Cameron gets their way on the timing of such an exercise! For this post I don’t want to dwell on whether independence is right or wrong for Scotland – instead, I want to consider what the impact would be for family historians should independence in fact be achieved, a very real and growing possibility.

If Scotland does decide to leave the union, how would it affect us researching our family history north of the border? In many ways you could argue that we in fact have a precedent for how independence would affect us, by way of the fact that a former and sizeable part of the United Kingdom has already left. A few weeks ago, the ninetieth anniversary passed almost unnoticed in Britain for the signing of the treaty on 6 December 1921 that saw the twenty six counties in the south of Ireland break away to form an Irish Free State, after just over 120 years of membership of the UK (in fact, the whole of Ireland actually broke away – but Northern Ireland almost immediately opted back into the union thanks to a clause in the treaty). Upon Partition, as it was known, separate governments were established for Northern Ireland and the Free State, and in the north a new General Register Office was established, along with a national archive (PRONI).

Yet in Scotland, there already exists a separate parliament, General Register Office and national archive, albeit the latter two now merged into the single body of the National Records of Scotland. Civil registration has always been carried out in Scotland under the authority of Scots Law, since it commenced in 1855, and on its own terms, with our records, for example, containing considerably more information than our British counterparts. Scottish censuses were initially carried out under the auspices of the Home Office in London, but from 1854 the role was transferred to the GROS, and in 1910, the earlier 1841 and 1851 Scottish censuses were transferred back from Westminster to Edinburgh following the introduction of the 1908 Pensions Act (for the purposes of providing supporting evidence for pension applications). When it comes to land records, probate records, church records and other key record sets, we again have completely different systems to those employed elsewhere in the UK, and always have had. In other words, virtually nothing would actually change on this front in terms of the future recording of such records – and for the past, most of our key records are already here.

In London, the National Archives of Kew is not just the national archive of England and Wales alone, but the archive of the entire United Kingdom. It therefore contains a significant amount of material pertaining to Scotland, albeit mainly following the union from 1707. It would of course no longer continue to gather material for Scotland if we became independent, but it would still have the material that relates to us from our shared past in our common 'British' era. It would be interesting to see if any discussions arise about access to such material – should Scotland have copies of such material, for example, and if so, who would pay for it? For Australia, a massive microfilming project took place many years back to copy records relating to the continent which were held at TNA, but then TNA is a long way from Oz! If we were to go independent, would we need such an exercise for Scotland? Would we ask for copies of all Scots military records, for example, or for the records of the former Scottish Office? If we look at Ireland again, records of British administration from Dublin Castle during Ireland’s membership of the union are still held at TNA – does that instead act as the precedent?

In most cases I suspect independence, no matter how dramatically it might affect other areas of life, would not really be much of an issue from a family history perspective in Scotland. We already have a massively different genealogical and legal infrastructure to the rest of the UK as is, though I suspect a new independent Scotland might generate further interest from the wider Scottish diaspora – and God forbid we might go down the route of issuing Certificates of Scottish Heritage in tartan folders!

Whatever the referendum outcome, our history for the last three hundred years has been one of a shared membership within the union. That won’t change, but I suspect the Scottish story within that union may be presented in many new and interesting ways by historians, some providing wonderful new insights, others dangerous revisionism. After Partition in Ireland, there was a zealous attempt to almost remove all trace of British influence in many parts of the south of Ireland, and only now is Ireland really coming to terms with its past within the union. If independence comes in Scotland, I doubt we will see anything like that here on such a scale - but who knows? Whatever the outcome of the referendum, when it comes to researching our ancestors we should never forget that they were part of a United Kingdom and all that entailed, for good and for bad, no matter how and if our own present situation changes.

Over now to the politicians for an interesting few months…!

UPDATE: The Scottish Government has just confirmed that the referendum will be held in Autumn 2014.

Chris

No more backbiting!

After some time away from them, I've gone back to transcribing the weavers records of Perth, which are in held private hands but which I was able to photograph a few years ago for a university project. I'm currently working on the minutes from 1671, and found this wee gem which made me laugh! It's from December 21st 1671, at a meeting held within the merchant seat of St. John's Kirk in Perth:

Here's the transcript:

The said day the deacone & calling taking to yr
serious consideratne the great injuries & wrongs
done by sevirall of the calling to oyers and especialie
of the furious exclaiming & backbytting one off
another Thirfor for preventing of the Lyk in tyme
to come  The said and calling in ane voice Inactd
and ordained that whatsoever brother ffrieman
or other of the said calling that exclaimed backbytd
or does any of the Lyk injuries to any oyer broyer
off the said calling at any tyme heirafter shall be
ffynd in ffourtie shillings scottis money unforgivin
toties quoties for ill tyme they or anther of them shall
contraveine this partl act And the ffyne to be takin
up be the deacone & appropriat for ye callings use
and this act is ordained to stand in full force for ever

A Corbie clk

If it all looks a bit weird, it's because it is written in both Scots and in Secretary Hand, so here it is in English:

The said day the deacon & Calling taking to their
serious consideration the great injuries and wrongs
done by several of the Calling to others and especially
of the furious exclaiming & backbiting one off
another Therefor for preventing of the like in time
to come  The said and calling in one voice enacted
and ordained that whatsoever brother freeman
or other of the said Calling that exclaimed slandered
or does any of the like injuries to any other brother
off the said Calling at any time hereafter shall be
fined forty shillings Scots money without any remission
on each occasion for all time they or another of them shall
contravene this particular act And the fine to be taken
up by the deacon & appropriated for the Calling's use
and this act is ordained to stand in full force for ever

A Corbie clerk

Some unusual Scots terms in the extract (see www.dsl.ac.uk)

backbyted (= bakbited) - slandered
toties quoties - as often as necessary, on every occasion
unforgivin (= unforgevin) - of a fine or penalty, without remission on any part

For a handy tutorial on how to read old forms of Scottish handwriting visit www.scottishhandwriting.com.

But the BIG question is - what was all the backbiting about?!!! Sadly, the minutes just happen to leave out the juicy bits...! :(

If I find any other wee gems I'll post them in due course!

Chris

Twins born two days apart

Thanks to a heads up from Megan Smolenyak and Your Family History magazine on Twitter, I've just been reading an article on the Irish Central news site at www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-American-twins-born-in-different-years-in-historic-first-136582258.html. It concerns the births of two Irish American twins, Ronan and Rory Rosputni, who were born just before midnight on 31st December 2011 and on 12.10am on 1st January 2012 - two different birthdays on two different years.

Och, we can go one better in Scotland! How about twins born two days apart on two different islands and in two different counties?! That happened in 1934, when mother Christina McLennan gave birth on the small island of Scarp, to the west of Harris, part of Inverness-shire. Complications set in after the first baby's birth, and Christina had to be evacuated to Lewis, in the nearby county of Ross and Cromarty (and the north half of the same island on which Harris is located!), where her second child was born two days later. Communications were poor from Scarp, and it had not been possible to summonse a doctor to the island (ironically a 5 minute boat trip today), and so the incident led to questions in Parliament and a bizarre experiment to set up a rocket mail service between Harris and Scarp by a German rocketeer called Zucker (which failed). Scarp was ultimately evacuated by its population, though a couple of families have houses there today. For more on Zucker's story visit www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/23/turner2.php.

I had the pleasure to work on a reconstruction of the experiment whilst working on the first series of the BBC's Coast as an assistant producer, and as well as visiting Scarp I in fact got to meet one of the twins in her home on the Isle of Lewis in 2005 - full of beans and exclaiming "Man alive!" every time she said something funny!

So there you go - 2 twins, 2 islands, 2 counties, 2 days apart! :)

Chris

You dirty old man?!

This one made me laugh! From the Inverness kirk session minutes:

20th November 1694

Compeared John Tailyour, who confessed that he was severall tymes in bed with Margaret ffraser, who lodges in his house, but was willing to depone that he never had carnall dealing with her. The Session finding the said John to be ane old poor man, about the age of 74 or 75, rebuked and seriously exhorted him with this certification if he should be found to cohabit with the sd Margaret that he should be brought to public censure.

Auld John Tailor must clearly have been quite sprightly for his age if the session thought he was having his wicked way with Margaret Fraser! :)

Chris

9/11 Remembered

Ten years ago today the world watched in horror as the events of 9/11 unfolded. At the time I was in Sardinia, where I had been finishing work on a BBC documentary special for the Meet the Ancestors series about the possible links between malaria and the fall of the Roman Empire. The following is my diary entry for the day...

Tuesday, 11th September 2001 - USA attacked

Today I saw the most horrifying event ever on the TV. It may lead to war. Having checked out of our hotel and then done some shopping in Olbia, we flew back to Rome in order to catch a plane to London. Andrew, who had lost his luggage on the way to Olbia two weeks ago, decided to check our luggage only as far as Rome, instead of Heathrow, in order to then recheck it at Rome. It was a mistake. Getting all our equipment from baggage reclaim took forever, so much so that we ended up missing the flight. We were forced to re-book onto the 6.25pm (Italian time), which was bad news as I could no longer get a connecting flight on to Glasgow. I was livid, but the next events soon put everything into perspective.

I called Claire to tell her what had happened. Within seconds she asked me if I had seen the news - two planes had been hijacked and forcibly crashed into the two towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City.

I immediately called all the crew together and we headed for a TV set in a nearby cafe in the airport. Although the commentary was in Italian, the images were from CNN. The event had literally happened 20 minutes ago, and the two planes had crashed 18 minutes apart. The second crash had been filmed and the programme kept repeating the clip. It was horrifying. One of the Italians watching with us could speak English, and she translated the commentary for us.

Things were getting even worse. A car bomb blew up outside the Defence Department in Washington DC, and shortly after a third plane crashed into the Pentagon building. Shortly after that, a fourth plane crashed just south of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The nightmare continued to worsen, when the two towers in Manhattan collapsed. It is believed the death toll could be as much as 20,000. It's like something from the movie "Independence Day". We just watched gobsmacked. Neil called us from Glasgow to see how we all were, and to find out if we were going to have a problem getting home. Everything still seemed to be OK for our travel plans, but Rome was now on an alert, in case a terrorist attack was imminent on their US air base nearby.

We boarded the plane at 6.15, but immediate security precautions regarding re-routed flight paths into London (to avoid flying over the city) meant that we could not depart until 8.30. On the plane Andrew and I discovered that the passenger sitting beside us was about to start working at the BBC next Monday, so we gave her an insiders' view on the corporation.

We finally got to London for about 11.00, where we learned that all flights to the US had been cancelled. With no hotel rooms available, due to the number of stranded Americans, I ended up going to Geoff's house in Ealing, where he kindly offered to put me up for the night. We got there for midnight, and eating an Indian meal we watched BBC News 24 for two and a half hours, silently, as we were really shocked at what was happening. It seems that 250 firemen may have been in the World Trade Centre as it collapsed. Dante had nothing on this. And an amateur cameraman managed to catch the first plane crash. It was like a missile, the speed it was doing. I went to sleep at 2.30am on Geoff's couch.

Remembering all 2,977 killed by the hijackers, including 67 Britons, and the 411 emergency workers who died heroically in the United States of America.

Wanted for MURDER

1866, Perthshire, Scotland. There's been a murder....

The Mount Stewart Murder, by Chris Paton. The unsolved case of the killing of the brutal slaying of my three times great grandmother, the UK's longest unsolved murder investigation by a modern police force.

UPDATE: Now available from The History Press at www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/crime-history-books/the-mount-stewart-murder.html or in ebook format at www.amazon.co.uk/Mount-Stewart-Murder-Re-Examination-ebook/dp/B008GRKOKA/ref=sr_1_5_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1364812989&sr=8-5