Many
of the records we can find listing our ancestors, especially prior to civil
registration, come from church records, at least in the British Isles. The
churches were central to the local societies and, in many respects, governed
the habits and deportment of the residents.
Comments
can often be found in parish registers, about historical events as well as concerning
the behaviour of parishioners. Ministers did not generally hold back when
commenting on moral issues in particular. What family researcher has not found
a reference to an illicit romance evidenced by a note in the baptism register
about pre-marital relations?
The
child might well be tagged with the label of bastard, if born out-of-wedlock or
before the parents were married. Even the date of conception might be
highlighted by clergymen. Such was the case for a 2nd
great-grandmother of a friend of mine where a note was inserted into the 1790
baptism register for Lintrathen, Forfarshire, Scotland, saying the child was “begat in antenuptial fornication.”
I
was reminded of the role of the church as well in looking at documents and
publications for a course I have just started on Scotland 1750 to 1850: Beyond the OPRs (Pharos Teaching and Tutoring). I found
a write-up on Campsie Parish, Stirlingshire (birthplace of my 2nd
great-grandfather), in The Statistical
Accounts of Scotland 1791-1845 describing the church, its history and its
activities, the author, Rev. Mr. James Lapslie, recorded how the church was involved in the formation and adjudication of
all manner of the parish’s social structure:
I
have all along been accustomed to consider these public religious meetings as
beneficial to the manners of the country. The ecclesiastical discipline of this
parish is still kept up. As for discipline against fornicators, two days doing
public penance in the church, are required, besides a fine of a crown, for each
guilty person, to the poor. There has been an opinion entertained, that this
public penance has been productive of very bad effects in society; so far has
an idea gone forth of this sort, that, for this reason, some writers have
pretended to say, that so long as doing public penance was permitted, no person
should be put to death for child murder; I am inclined to believe, that it
would be much more the interest of the community, in a political light, that
the laws of discipline should be more rigidly adhered to; for if once the
vulgar of any country, consider incontinency as a venial fault, they are almost
ready for the commission of any crime; and as l can easily see, that the shame
of doing penance operates to deter others; in this point of view, it is to be
considered as answering the ends of edification.
Publications
like the Statistical
Accounts of Scotland are great sources of information about areas of
Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. The report
on Campsie had a lot of information about the weaving and printing industries
which employed many of my ancestors.
There
are many historical and genealogical publications available now to download.
One of the great sites I go to often is Archive.org.
A quick search of the site for “Parish of Campsie” in the text of books
resulted in 3,378 hits, 281 of them under the sub-category of genealogy. Many
were family genealogies.
If
you are doing research for your Scottish lines, as I have done recently, don’t
forget to look for historical information that can give you
important background to how and where your ancestors lived. And do check sites such as the
Statistical Accounts and Archive.org for relevant material.
