Can anybody solve this puzzle?

[Currie]

Here’s some interesting reading on the subject. “Sketch of the History and Imperfect Condition of the Parochial Records etc.”
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=BZs ... AJ&pg=PA25 Also now available here http://www.archive.org/details/sketchof ... 00setouoft

This book would make a great script for a movie. “Carry On Session Clerk”. The page headings say it all:

21. Registers Lost or destroyed
22. Recovered Registers
23. Registers Borrowed and Lost
24. Registers Destroyed by Fire
25. Registers in Loose Sheets
26. Transcribed Registers
27. Promiscuous Entries
28. Inattention to Date
29. Want of Designations
30. Importance of Designations
31. Baptisms and Burials
32. Marriage Proclamations
33. Increasing Irregularity
34. Instances of Improvement
35. Omissions in Baptismal Register
36. Defective Burial Registers
37. Varied Forms of Entry

On second thoughts maybe Stephen King would be interested.

But who knows what people got up to. If it was good enough for Sir Andrew Agnew to name all his sons Andrew and for Edward Gibbon to name all his sons Edward then why should not the great unwashed do the same. (footnote p.30)

Google Books are much easier read downloaded.

All the best,
Alan

[JohnI]

The 1841 Mid Lothian census at FreeCEN gives:

Elspeth Burrel, 50 years old living at Dalkeith with three children, John, Christian and Eliza.

[LesleyB]

Great book Alan, and you are right, a really fascinating movie could be made!

p.14, Edinburgh;
The register of burials is kept by those whose faculties are impaired by drinking; who forget today what was done yesterday...

p.62
It further appeared from the testimony of the withess that....he was in the practice of making entries of births and marriages, not only after the dates of the events, but also irrespectively of chronological order.

- anyone who has searched through a microfilm of the OPR records for certain parishes will have seen this in action!

...and interesting find there, JohnI.

oh dear, so many typos to correct...just as well I'm not a session clerk!

[keewik]

I'm really grateful for all these suggestions and information - some might help me with other ancestors from the same area. As regards trhe Freecen entry - I hadn't looked outwith Edinburgh itself but I'll take a look at this and see how the names and ages match up. My Elspeth was born in 1785, so given the natue of the ages in 1841 Census, and the vagueness of some folk about their age, it's not outwith the bounds that this could be her.