Need Kilmarnock (Ayr) baptism help

[sporran]

Hello Katherine,


I do not know if the ministers in Ayrshire got together and promoted the idea, but the parish of Sorn has at least a dozen pages of such mentions of births. The longest entry that I found was for 8 McCrae offspring, and it read:

"The following the lawful children of Gordon Hebron McCrae, Engine Keeper, and Janet Rigg, his spouse, were born at the under-mentioned dates and places, viz
Janet McCrae was born 24th May 1826 at Cumnock,"
....6 others in Cumnock, New Cumnock, and Muirkirk....
"George McCrae was born 18th August 1842 at Muirkirk."

I gave up after going back 12 pages, so I did not find the start of these entries, but beneath the McCrae family was a birth on 29th August 1854, so I suspect that these pages were written at the end of 1854.


Regards,

John

[ksyoung]

Thanks to all for your help on this. TalkingScot comes through for me again! My guess is that the OPR page in question was written in 1855, since Jean found some entries on earlier pages that gave the date 31 December 1855. Perhaps folks thought that they had to get registered by the end of 1855, hence the 31st December date. I looked in "Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry" by Kathleen Cory to see what she had to say on the subject. She just comments that there were births registered in retrospect when statutory registration was introduced, and points out that if you are having trouble finding an OPR record using a microfilm, go to the end of the film to see if the birth you are looking for was registered in 1854/1855.

One of the entries on my OPR page had the notation "Per statement of [maternal grandmother]", and signed by what looks like the registrar ["Regr"]. The child in question was illegitimate, and I thought that the "Per statement" notation was there because the child was not being registered by a biological parent. Since Jean saw notes that said "Per statement of father...", maybe it indicates that the child was not present. I say child, but some of these folks would have been adults by the time their births were being registered.

Here's an aside - the illegitimate child was given the father's surname, which I thought was unusual for the time. He was given two middle names; his maternal grandparents surnames. Perhaps the grandfather was doing his best to protect the boy from the stigma of being illegitimate.

Last thing, then I'll stop. I have a death cert on an ancestor who died in April 1855. His children and their ages are given. Four children are deceased; for 3 of them the age and year of death are given. For one daughter, only the age of death [32] is given, but not the year. She was born Jan 3 1823, so she died in 1855, but I can't find a death cert for her. Perhaps the registrar quietly decided to not bring attention to the fact that her death was not registered.

thanks again,
Katherine