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Archiver > ABERDEEN > 2011-01 > 1295445006


From: Nancy Cutway <>
Subject: Re: [ABERDEEN] ABERDEEN Digest, Vol 6, Issue 21
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:50:06 -0500
References: <mailman.332.1295408413.5357.aberdeen@rootsweb.com>
In-Reply-To: <mailman.332.1295408413.5357.aberdeen@rootsweb.com>


>Bob Wallace wrote:
>
> >For some number of years I have been looking for a marriage record
> for Alexr
> >Wallace and Margaret Gray of Tarves Parish, somewhere in the range
> of 1803-1805.
> >Just recently, it's been discovered that marriage records for the period
> >1801-1850 are not available. Records are available from 1736 to
> 1801, then jump
> >to 1850 through 1875. Might anyone have any idea why there appear to be no
> >records for nearly 50 years in Tarves Parish?

And Gavin Bell responded with a report on the Registrar General's
survey of Tarves records that
" ends with a reproof and caution from the Presbytery
>enjoining the more careful keeping of Minutes. None, however, seem to
>have been kept by the Session for 28 years", and in fact the Minutes do
>not resume until 1841, and the Accounts not until 1851. This suggests
>engrained carelessness or laziness on the part of the Minister, or the
>Session, or both, which could also account for there being no Register
>of Marriages.

Even before he stopped keeping marriage records, the minister was
sloppy or forgetful: a few years ago I read through the microfilm of
all the baptisms, looking for the family of John FINDLATER. I found
one that matches the birth of my 3-gt-grandfather Alexander b 1792,
but the entry shows as "_______ son of John Findlater ...". There
are numerous other entries where the minister left a space (sometimes
underlining the space), presumably intending to come back to the
record to fill in the blank when he remembered the name -- but he never did so.

Nancy Findlater Cutway
Kingston, Ontario, Canada

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