Tuesday 26 July 2016

Scotland's counties and regions

The way Scotland is divided up into counties has changed several times and must be very confusing for researchers not familiar with Scotland.

 Undiscovered scotland explains the changes in administrative areas.

For example Brechin was in Forfarshire but that is now Angus.

The county town often had the same name as the county e.g. Ayr in Ayrshire, Kirkcudbright in Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumbarton in Dunbartonshire (note the change from M to N), Inverness in Inverness-shire but there is no town called Argyll.

Kirkcudbrightshire is now part of Dumfries & Galloway.

What is now the town of Dumfries is split by the river Nith - the east side was in the parish of Dumfries, Dumfriesshire and the west side was Maxwelltown in the parish of Troqueer in Kirkcudbrightshire.

Other confusions are with similar place names e.g. Kilmaronock in Dunbartonshire and Kilmarnock in Ayrshire.  Dalry in Ayrshire and (St John's Town of) Dalry in Dumfriesshire. There's also a part of Edinburgh called Dalry.

There is also the problem of parish names which may not actually be the name of a village or town such as the aforementioned Troqueer.

And the parish of Loudoun in Ayrshire covered parts of Galston, Newmilns and Darvel.  There was no actual place called Loudoun although there was Loudoun Rows, near Loudoun Kirk.
Although I live in that area, I still get confused. I tend to go by the street name e.g. Brown street, Loudoun I know is in Newmilns.

The family search wiki on Scotland is very helpful.






Friday 15 July 2016

42nd cousins

 I shall explain how to work out relationships with cousins.



The starting point is the common ancestor.

If you both share a grandparent, you will be the same generation, you are cousins or first cousins.

Robert Murdoch and  Hugh Fleming are first cousins.

If you both share a great grandparent ( and you will be the same generation)  you are second cousins.

David Murdoch and Isabella Fleming are second cousins and her daughter Mary and David are second cousins once removed, meaning one generation removed.


See this chart for more distant cousins.