Scotch-Irish-L Archives

Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1998-01 > 0884548287


From: linda Merle <>
Subject: Re: Surname Listing
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:51:27 -0800


Hi Connie

> Linda, tell us how to get a hold of the Scottish OPR CD of which you
> spoke. How does it work that families can be connected?

First you have to go to a family history center and find a vacant
computer. Then you stuff the Scottish CD into the cd reader and
off you go. You can do three kinds of searches:

Individual
Marriage
Parent

An individual search returns people who meet your search criteria.
These are christenings. They list parents. Voila! Parental connections.
You can do a parent search to find other persons who have the same
parents listed in their christening. Voila! Sibs! You can do a marriage
search to locate a marriage record for the parents.

Then you take 20 years off the marriage date and search for the
christenings of the married couple. If you find candidates with the
right names who were baptized six years before being married...hmmm...
might not be them unless the entry is delayed. No problema, you
can look at the sources and get the film and FRAME (avoids going
blind reading whole film) and read the whole record. Usually your
problem is that the entire CD seems filled up with Helen Scotts who
married William URE's. These folk were not creative when it came
to taking surnames or firstnames.

You can limit the search to county, which helps with 200 helen
scotts! Then you only look through 50 in Stirling, assuming the
one in the same parish is the most likely one. However you need to
get the records to really KNOW. But it's fun, and it's fast, and
as long as they didn't change parishes too often you don't go broke
ordering film.

I've found duplicates too -- They did a second baptism in a
dissenting church. WhATTA WIN, to get the name of the church they
went to and to learn the records are on the CD. St. John's Associate
Presby in the parish of St. Ninian's in Stirling. Okay, what did
they go to when they moved to Polmont? Whatever it is, it is not on
the CD and neither are my dissenting Polmonters. I am beginning
to get very angry at my great great great grandfather and to
suspect he deliberately obscured his origins just to cause me
grief <grin>. Must be a real name for this form of mental illness:
hostility towards long dead ancestors for ridiculous things.

If they did move about, it's a fast way to find them unless they are
named "John Anderson" or "William Ure" or "Andrew BEatty". Then it
is multiple choice and you have to order all the films from all
those parishes to find which one might be your ancestor. And maybe
none of them are. Maybe he is in the original parish but a
rat ate the record. (Massive hostility towards hypothetical rats
impacts judgement here) You could adopt a whole line of strangers.
This is why its best to get two proofs, but it is hard enough to
get one, right?

It can really be a fantastic aid. However the coverage for various
parishes varies greatly. Some of mine were from Haddington in East
Lothian. Major win! Records start around 1610. I saw one parish in
Argyll....1800. A big win for lowlander virtues....like keeping
records.

How do you tell? I have "The Parishes, Registers, and Registrars
of Scotland" by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies,
Which I got for FOUR BUCKS as a member of the British Isles family
History Society in LA at their three day seminar. Full page maps
of all the counties and all their parishes. The parish numbers
(needed), and dates for all records in all parishes.

I don't know how highlanders do research. I worry about Argyll.
Ure is a Campbell sept. William Ure is irriting, but Archie
DALRYMPLE is worse. I think he was dropped off by a UFO. That
could explain some of my relatives.

I've been told the OPRs are in IGI as well as civil registration
for just 1861 and 71, the census years. Can anyone confirm?

Linda Merle

This thread: