Jul 25th, 2009
Preserving & centralising our family records
I received two CDS of graveyard photos and monumental inscriptions from scots roots. This is a smashing idea from genealogist Helen Grant. The kirkyards were Pettinain and Dunsyre, both in Lanarkshire. I had high hopes of these, because of all those Somerville families connected with the two villages back in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Sadly, there was precious little of my families. They were obviously too poor to have afforded headstones. I thought I might spend a little time hunting down lair records. Because, although I have burial records for a few in the Old Parish Records, there’s precious little information there. Finding a William Somerville, he could be one of five or six – which Somerville family did he belong to?
Back in the 1980s, I first started looking at my family’s history in a random fashion. One of the things I did (I had access to a car, which makes all the difference) was to visit graveyards. (more…)
Jun 26th, 2009
How is a village made?
I’ve been homing in on a village in Lanarkshire where four generations of my Somerville ancestors lived.
As it was a small village (around 500 people in the 1850s and possibly less than that in earlier centuries), it’s possible to get a fair overall view of who lived there and how the village families were inter-related. I did a blanket search for Somerville BMDs 1538-1854 in the Old Parish Records on scotlandspeople and came to the conclusion that this family (or families) must have made up a majority of the population for nigh on two centuries. The records, by the way, date back to a little before the Scottish Reformation and end as national registration takes over from the parish records.
As for women marrying (more…)
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