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Old 06-09-12, 08:12
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Shona Shona is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Oop nerth and darn sarf
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Me, too.

When I started researching my Scottish family, I was surprised by the number of illegitimate ('natural') births compared to legitimate ('lawful'). Natural births appeared to be the norm. I discovered that in some parts of Scotland (south west and north east, where Annie's family lived), illegitimate birth was very common. It may be that the tradition of 'irregular' marriage was deeply rooted in these areas - people were deemed married if they declared it before two witnesses. Many years ago, one of my Scottish grannies told me that when her granny was young, your declaration of marriage wasn't accepted until you had sex and proof that the relationship had been consummated was a baby.

The Kirk hated all this. Reading through Kirk Session records, some are obsessed by sex - they wanted all the details. It didn't have much effect on my family and their neighbours, though! All those young male farm labourers housed together in bothies next to bothies housing all the young female farm labourers was asking for trouble.

On a general point, Scottish records contain much more information than English records. I've got records in which, in the case of remarriage, give details of the number of children from previous relationships. I was also helped in my research thanks to my mother having five middle names - all surnames from previous generations.

They packed a lot into the episode.
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