A Tale of Genealogy, Fraud and Poverty
by John Arthur
What makes us the sort
of people we are? It is certainly not only our environment
or our upbringing but it’s the attitudes and traits that
are passed on to us from generation to generation and it’s
by understanding our genealogy and family History that we
come to understand ourselves.
So how do we go about
doing this? The first step is to find our own birth
certificate and from this we will find out where we were
born, who our parents were and when they were married and
so on. From our parents marriage certificate we can trace
our grand-parents and again from their marriage
certificate this will give where they lived, how old they
were on marriage, what trade they followed and so on and
then by using this information we can then find our
great-grandparents and so on back into time. Also by using
this information with the help of the many genealogical
online sources we can trace without too much difficulty if
there were children of these unions. I must add although
not difficult the tracing of siblings can be very time
consuming. There is certainly no royal road to success
just perseverance. Further, I must admit that I have over
simplified the above process for clarity as many
complications can come into it such as divorce,
re-marriage and so on.
However in Scotland statutory registration started in 1855
and prior to this the recording of Births, deaths and
marriages was the responsibility of the church and this
record is called the Old Parish Record (OPR) and the
earliest known record of this dates back to 1555.
So taking Scotland as an example everybody can trace their
family back to 1855 and most back to the 18th century and
some to the 16th and 17th century and there are many
reasons for this. In the first place the spellings of
names change through time only becoming the accepted
version in the later part of the 19th century but despite
this various spellings of family names still exist to the
day. So unless we know the form of spelling of the family
name we won’t be able to find the ancestor we are looking
for. A further problem is the actual record itself and
that is as good or as bad as the person who originally
made the record in the first place. Some Session Clerks of
the Church of Scotland were first class at recording and
so they will record for example, for a marriage, the names
of the people being married, parents and witnesses along
with their trade and where they lived etc. However in some
OPR’s all we have are the names of the people being
married and that is it. Apart from this records can be
lost, destroyed, defaced, and can be simply wrong or
confusing and if the family historian isn’t absolutely
sure about how to approach or handle records this can
cause no end of problems and people can be totally misled.
Not only this, but couples have been married under
completely false names.
Talking about marriages and the OPR. What people don’t
realise is that a couple could be married according to the
law of Scotland but never recorded in the OPR. The reason
for this is until quite recently a person could be
considered married in several different ways without a
Church or Civil marriage taking place (Civil marriage was
originally consented to by the granting of a Sheriff
warrant) and that was by sexual intercourse, by agreement,
and by habit and repute. There was also what was called an
Irregular marriage which was in fact a form of fraud. The
idea was to take advantage of a young lady for sex. Taking
Leith as an example. Leith is a port and being a port has
seen many sailors and soldiers passing through it over the
years and not only this but Leith has many Public Houses.
So a Sailor or Soldier visits a Public House and wants a
night’s pleasure with a young lady who he fancies. The
lady in question says she is respectable and would not
consider sex before marriage. The Soldier/Sailor says that
isn’t a problem because he had someone that could marry
them there and then and so they go to the back room of the
Public House where they go through a form of marriage with
a so called “Celebrant” and the lady gets a certificate.
However the marriage is a total fraud and by the time the
woman discovers she is expecting the Soldier/Sailor is
long gone. The problem for the woman is because if she
can’t produce a valid marriage certificate she couldn’t
claim any help from the Parish and that is why if the
fathers could be traced the Church insisted on them being
properly married. So if this happened to your ancestor the
record of the marriage won’t be found in the OPR but in
the Kirk Session Records. In this the Church wasn’t being
narrow minded it was because Edinburgh up to the beginning
of the twentieth century, incredible though it may sound,
the greatest cause of death was starvation and if a woman
couldn’t work or get money in some way or another she
could well starve to death. Forget about the Shortbread
tin idea of Scotland, Kilts and all the rest of it. Scots
left Scotland to go overseas because, especially in the
late 18th and 19th centuries, to escape from bad housing,
disease and shocking working conditions. Visit any
Churchyard in Scotland that is reasonably ancient and you
will find whole families wiped out by disease and want. As
one writer put it writing about poverty in Scotland in the
19th century “Live in misery and die at thirty seven”
So when you come to do your family tree try to find out
something of the history of the area of where they lived
and if possible try to find the streets mentioned in your
certificates in maps of the period in which they lived.
That will help to put some flesh on the bones so to speak
instead of you just having a name or a list of names.
What is most important is not to have any romantic ideas
about your ancestors. They were human beings and lived
within the context of their times and it would be wrong to
judge them by our standards. If you wish to see what
living conditions were like in the past then visit my “The
History of Leith Website” at www.leithhistory.co.uk it
will surprise you.
John Arthur is a Local Historian for
Leith,Edinburgh,Scotland and a Genealogist, married with
two sons and has websites at
www.lineages.co.uk,www.leithhistory.co.uk