Genealogy Chat

Hi Folks
This subject has come up twice in just a few weeks. Once on this site and again on another forum.
I thought I should post the info here to clarify why a Scottish birth/baptism of an un named child may appear on Family Search.
Before statutory records in 1855, there were NO Scottish birth records.
There were ONLY baptisms, and on these, some parishes also chose to record the child's birth date.

There are many instances on family search providing Birth dates for un named children.
As there were no birth records, only baptism, it stands to reason that a child could not possibly have been baptised without being given a name.

Some time ago, I discovered that these un named birth/baptism anomalies were in fact, produced from entries on the Parish Mortcloth Record.
These entries refer to infant deaths ,where the child was unbaptised and therefore un named.
A typical (infant) Mortcloth entry shows only the gender, the father's name, cost of burial and possibly an area location within the parish for the family


The Mortcloth entry would hold neither a definitive birth nor death date.
The only date available is the date that the death was recorded onto the Mortcloth.

Both the LDS and Scotlands People, have accessed the Mortcloth records, and used them to create BOTH a birth and death for the un named male/female child.

Whether you purchase the birth record or the death record from SP, both will result in the same Mortcloth entry.

Anne

To clarify Anne, if you have searched on Ancestry (free) and want to get a definitive answer via SP (paid) you might be buying a record only of a Mortcloth entry which is not very reliable as regards exact dates of birth, baptism and death?

Thats more or less correct Malcolm.
However, I would expect that any death, infant or otherwise would appear on the Mortcloth within a very short period after the death.
In the case of an infant, there is no indication as to how old the child was.
Only that he/she was un baptised and un named, and it is therefore accepted that the child would have been born and died within a short space of time.
The SP birth or death which results in a Mortcloth record will give the same date for both... the Mortcloth entry date!.

I have a printed copy of the entire Mortcloth of Cambuslang.
This includes the death of an un named infant who is entered on 17 Dec 1851.
If you were to search on SP for a male child with this surname ( has no first name), you will get a match showing a birth of 17 Dec 1851. The same result will be found if searching for the death.
As there is no other info on the record, both SP and LDS assume that the child was born and died on the same day.

On this subject.... By coincidence, this same family had another infant who was evidently unbaptised and died at 26 days old, it was however 1855 and Statutory records had just come into force.
It is apparent that the child had not been named prior to his death, and the family were unaware that they required one for registration purposes.
The birth and death both name the child as Archibald ( his father's first name) even although the family already had a living ( and baptised) child witht his name.

Other researchers looking into this family have got themselves into a pickle over names/births and deaths because they are looking only at info held on Family Search and have never looked at the actual records.

Anne

Yes I see what you mean. Personally, with the exception of help from kind friends here, I exclusively use Scotlands People - online and visiting the centre twice a year so I do have access to the original records.

It seems that a LOT of errors are caused by poor transcription and bad interpretation. The case you point out is a good one to keep in mind.