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Archiver > ABERDEEN > 2005-04 > 1112635681


From: Gavin Bell <>
Subject: Re:[ABERDEEN] At Clements, Aberdeen
Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 18:28:01 +0100


Pat wrote:

> ...
> 1) Is there anyone on the list who could do a look up in the 1851
> and 1861 St Clements' census records for the following ROBERTSON
> family found in the 1841 census ...

Aberdeen and Northeast Scotland FHS (www.anesfhs.org.uk) have an indexed
version of St Clements 1851, and will do lookups for members.

> 2) Who could I contact regarding the St. Clements parish records
> as it seems possible that Ann ROBERTSON (aged 10 in the 1841 census)
> may have been baptised at St Clements.

Two things to be said here. The first is that the marriage you quote was
at the FREE St Clements Church. That is not the same as the Kirk of
Scotland parish of St Clements, but is a congregation of the Free Kirk
which broke away from the Kirk of Scotland in 1843. Records have
survived for some of the Free Kirk congregations in Aberdeen, but not
(so far as I can tell) for the St Clements one.

Secondly, while St Clements does appear as a parish for Census purposes,
it wasn't a "full-blown" parish for religious purposes. The original
City parish of St Nicholas was subdivided on various occasions. One of
these divisions took place in 1828, when St Clements and 5 other
sub-parishes were carved out of the original parish - but St Nicholas
retained a degree of superiority, and in particular, kept the Registers
of baptism and marriage under their own control.

A further result of the central control exerted by St Nicholas is that
other records which might just possibly mention your family (such as the
Kirk Session and burial records for St Clements) are now held by
Aberdeen City Archives.


Gavin Bell


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