I am wondering why SP doesn't have

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:10 am

Hi All,

I am wondering why SP doesn't have certain records that the LDS Church has.
For example, a number of my ancestors and their relatives belonged to the Associate Session Church of Balfron, Stirlingshire. I have quite a number of 18th & 19th century baptisms from that church. I can only get copies of these baptisms from the LDS. These records are not even listed in SP.

Does anyone know why this is? I would have thought that by now, anything not listed in SP doesn't exist. Of course, this situation gives me hope that there are other records out there somewhere that are yet to be made public.

Regards

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:42 am

Hi Sheila

LDS appear to have gone round as many churches as would allow them to photograph their record books whether they were Established Church or one of the smaller Protestant sects/branches/offshoots (I'm never quite sure how they would prefer to be described)
When the established Church of Scotland became simply The Church of Scotland record books were supposed to be submitted to Head Office in Edinburgh for archiving. Not all churches complied fully so there can be gaps in the records held by Scotlandspeople.
In my village the Seccession church became a United Presbyterian church then rejoined the Church of Scotland in the 1920's. Their records were not submitted until the mid 1970's

The original parish church (Established CoS) still have hung on to most of their records although the Baptisms and Marriages were submitted.

The congregations still like to think they are masters of their own little empire and will not be ruled from Edinburgh

Maybe we will have a second wave of Seccessionists

Russell

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:39 am

Hi Russell,

I am surprised that they didn't get the records for Associated Session Church of Balfron. There must be quite a lot of records there and not just for my old rellies. My ancestors seemed to have attended that church even when they were living in Fintry, Killrean, Denny, etc. This could not have been easy in the 18th and early 19th centuries. I am assuming that people walked to service in those days. From what I have read in the early statistical accounts, the roads in those days, especially in the 17 hundreds, were terrible.

Do you think that it is possible that there are still records out there, like the ones in Balfron, in some other churches that have not yet been handed over for archiving? It is always possible that the LDS missed some too.

I don't mind if they don't want to be ruled from Edinburgh.

All I want is access to their records.

Post by **AndrewP** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 3:20 am

The bmd, census and OPRs on ScotlandsPeople are all records held by GROS in New Register House. The Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages (Scotland) Act 1854 called for the Parochial Registers up to 1819 were to be submitted to GROS in 1855 and the 1820 to 1854 registers submitted to GROS 30 years later, having being kept locally in the safe in the registrar's office for that time.

The Associate Session Church records and their like were at submitted to the Scottish Record Office (nowadays known as the National Archives of Scotland - NAS) over the course of time. NAS has originals for these records for some parts of Scotland. They have copies (digital image or paper copy?) of others which are held in other record repositories around Scotland. These have not been made available to ScotlandsPeople so far.

All the best,

AndrewP

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:25 pm

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the info. It does sound a bit confusing. It seems that neither GROS nor NAS each, have all of the records, though I am assuming that between them they have most of them.

I guess that there are some records still out there that neither of them have. Maybe the people that hold these records are unaware of this situation. They might assume that copies of these records were given to either GROS or NAS sometime in the past.

Post by **AndrewP** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:54 pm

sheilajim wrote:I guess that there are some records still out there that neither of them have. Maybe the people that hold these records are unaware of this situation. They might assume that copies of these records were given to either GROS or NAS sometime in the past.

There are still many records held within churches. I don't think there is any obligation for these to be sent into the NAS, either to keep or to copy.

One example is the Scottish Catholic Records, which a portion of were granted permission to go onto ScotlandsPeople from today. There are other records held by the Scottish Catholic Archives which were not part of this agreement, but can be viewed in the SCA premises in Edinburgh. However, some of their records are held at diocese offices or in the individual churches.

I am quite sure the case is similar for the other churches out there. There is no centralised system for pulling these records into NAS or their like.

Beyond that there are many other sets of records which are held by counclis, libraries or other record archives around the country - such as voters' rolls, valuation rolls, poorhouse records, teind books, school records and so on. Some of these are available to view (mostly the original paper records) if you know where to find them.

All the best,

AndrewP

Post by **emanday** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 2:29 am

There are also records held in private collections that no-one has rights to view without the express permission of the current owners!

I understand that some poor relief records in certain areas/periods were held by the land owner who wholly or in the majority funded poor relief, so had total control of the management of same.

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 4:28 pm

I have also heard that some records were 'borrowed' for use in Court Cases, in the 19th Century, but never returned. I wonder what happened to them.

I really don't understand why anyone would keep such records to themselves. I know if I had any I would have turned them over to be of use to everyone.

Post by **AndrewP** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 5:43 pm

sheilajim wrote:I have also heard that some records were 'borrowed' for use in Court Cases, in the 19th Century, but never returned. I wonder what happened to them.

They are probably gathering dust in some court archive. They could even be in NAS's premises, lost in the court papers rather than on the shelves that they came from.

All the best,

AndrewP

Post by **joette** » Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:00 pm

Now you have me wondering-what does the LDS Church do with its records?
Like Baby blessings,baptisms & marriages,burials.I know they send back copies of certificates to Church Headquarters in Solihull & Salt Lake City-I presume at some point eg after fifty years they go on the IGI.
Marriages off course are also registered with the appropriate Civil authorities-mmm I will have to ask.