‘Be the rebellis of this Kingdome killed & slaine’: A Glasgow Apprentice’s Testament

I’m currently doing some research into the Incorporation of Cordiners in Glasgow (a trade incorporation of leather workers) and spent yesterday looking at records of various Glasgow cordiners and their families, including a lot of testaments (the Scottish version of probate records). 

One record that I found particularly intriguing was the testament dative and inventory of John Bryssone (Bryson), son of the deceased Patrike Bryssone, cordiner, Burgess of Glasgow, which was confirmed at Glasgow Commissary Court on 8th July 1647. 

John had died in August 1645 and his sister, Margaret, was appointed as his executrix. However, the really interesting information about him comes under the heading of ‘Inventare’: 

Glasgow Commissary Court: Register of Testaments 1646-1650 

NAS ref. CC9/7/30, Page 124 

Item the defunct being the tyme foirs[ai]d bund prenteis to W[illia]m Glen elder baxter burges of glasgow taine furt[h] as ane co[m]mone souldier being of the age of twe[n]tie yeiris or th[e]rby And be the rebellis of this Kingdome killed & slaine at the battell of kyllsyt[h]... 

The Battle of Kilsyth took place on 15th August 1645 and was a conflict between Scottish Royalists, under James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, and the Covenanters, under William Baillie. Information on the battle can be found on the UK Battlefields Resource Centre. 

When I initially read the testament I presumed that the ‘rebellis’ were the Covenanters and that John Bryssone had fought on the side of the Royalists. However, a little reading indicates that Glasgow generally supported the Covenanting movement and that by 1647, when the testament was confirmed, it was Montrose and his army who were viewed as the rebels (according to the Records of the Parliaments of Scotland). 

Photograph by Chris Wimbush

Source: Wikipedia

John Bryssone (or Bryssoun) was probably the son of Patrick Bryssone and Isobel Glen baptised in Glasgow in 1619. From the OPRs it appears that Margaret was his only sibling. 

William Glen, elder, baxter, Burgess of Glasgow, to whom John was apprenticed, acted as cautioner for Margaret when the testament was confirmed, and may have been a relative of their mother, Isobel Glen. 

I was not able to locate a record of John’s apprenticeship, although The Records of the Trades House of Glasgow A.D. 1605-1678 does record at least two other boys being apprenticed to William Glen, elder, baxter (in 1631 and 1649) both as “seivin yeirs prenteis and twa yeirs for meit and fie”.

According to a report in the Cumbernauld News, historians believe that many of those killed in the battle were buried nearby.  Much of the battlefield is now under Banton Loch, although a memorial cairn (shown above) was erected in 2003.

Preserving Personal Papers: A Cautionary Tale (and a confession)

I had a great time at the SAFHS conference yesterday and attended some interesting lectures. These included a talk by Richard Hunter of Edinburgh City Archives on “Edinburgh its Archives and Inhabitants” in which he emphasised that many records of the city’s schools and other organisations have been lost - in most cases simply thrown away. 

Today, I’ve been clearing out some boxes in a cupboard and have discovered that some of my own papers have been lost and damaged - in this case due to poor storage. 

I’m a bit of a hoarder and wasn’t too worried when it was discovered that one of the boxes was somewhat damp as I thought it just contained some old papers from uni that I would most likely throw away if I ever got around to sorting them out. 

I was, however, more than a little upset to discover at the bottom of an increasingly wet box a cardboard folder containing a set of certificates and other papers that I’ve been collecting together since childhood so wet and covered with mould that it some cases half of each document has been eaten away and no longer exists. 

These papers include my GCSE certificates, a series of dance and music examinations going back to the 80s (some with handwritten reports by the examiners) and a group photo of my school year as well as less official ‘certificates’ such as one confirming that I took a trip in a hot air balloon in 1991. Not the most important documents in the world perhaps (it could have been a lot worse) but I know I’d be pretty excited to discover something similar concerning an ancestor. 

Of course as a genealogist I know that not only should these have been more carefully stored (I honestly believed that this folder was kept in another cupboard!) but also that I should have scanned them and kept multiple backed-up copies. As a human being, I hadn’t got around to it yet. 

I confess that I don’t really have a proper system when in comes to storing genealogical documents. I’ve always figured that all the important stuff is still with my mum and dad and that most of the records I have are modern copies of documents held in public archives that would be relatively straightforward (if costly) to replace. 

Yes, I’ve heard of Scanfest (apparently there’s one happening today!) but somehow I just never thought it was relevant to me and, probably like many genealogists, I’ve never given much thought to documenting my own life. 

Thanks to some advice from Facebook friends I’ve now put what survives of my documents in the freezer. I am hoping this will dry them out sufficiently to be able to separate the pages so that I can then scan and/or photograph what remains in order to salvage some of the information, if not the documents themselves. 

In the meantime I’m giving some serious thought to making sure I have scans of all my other personal and family papers and to (finally) implementing a proper system for backing up my data - honest!

Genealogy versus Family History

I’ve recently been watching episodes of the second US series of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ (WDYTYA) and following reactions to it through Twitter and on GeneaBloggers Radio. I was particularly struck by the response to the episode featuring Kim Cattrall which seemed to be (from some quarters at least) that, although very interesting, it didn’t include much genealogy and that therefore WDYTYA was not the best place to feature such a story. 

The episode, in which Kim discovered what happened to her maternal grandfather after he left his wife and young family, was originally shown as part of Series 6 of the UK WDYTYA and this perhaps explains why it sits a little uncomfortably with the rest of the US series. In the UK, WDYTYA has gradually evolved from the early series, which did tend to be a straightforward tracing of family lines generation by generation, to the most recent ones which often follow a more biographical format, featuring perhaps just one or two ancestors of the featured celebrity. 

Although I’m not without criticism of these episodes (which often seem to be chosen because of their ability to wring the maximum amount of emotion out of the participant), I do think that this shows one of the strengths of the programme, namely in demonstrating how wide-ranging the study of family history can be. WDYTYA shows that family history can be about recent generations, what your grandfather did in the war or why no one ever talked about great uncle so-and-so, as much as about tracing your surname as far back as possible or collecting as many names and dates as you can. 

In my professional research I’m often fascinated by the range of what clients want to find out about their ancestors and, conversely, what they are not interested in. For example, one former client was very keen to trace all the brothers and sisters of their grandparents, including property records, wills, newspaper reports and passenger lists. However, when I suggested it would be possible to trace the family another generation or two back they were not interested. For them, tracing their family history meant discovering more about the people they had grown up hearing stories about; beyond this they felt the connection was too distant to be worth pursuing. 

Then there are those clients for whom the goal is to trace the family line as far back as possible and when a record suggests a possible avenue for research (e.g. a census return may indicate an ancestor spent time in an institution for which records survive) they are not interested in pursuing it, but are instead content with locating births, marriages and deaths. In this case, the attitude seems to be that once you go back a few generations you have so many ancestors that you can’t possibly find out everything about them all and that therefore it is best to stick to the basics. 

Of course there are plenty of people whose interests fall somewhere between these two, and in the case of paid research (or indeed any research) the cost involved is a factor in determining how much research can be done into any one individual. However, these varying attitudes can perhaps be summed us as the difference between genealogy and family history. 

The terms genealogy and family history are often used interchangeably (a genealogy society and a family history society are pretty much the same thing, for example) but can also mean slightly different things. A family tree chart showing the names of all your ancestors going back four generations with their respective dates of birth and death records your genealogy, but tells you little about your family history. 

Where did your ancestors live? What jobs did they do? Were they wealthy or in receipt of poor relief? What were their lives like? These are all questions the family historian seeks to answer. Whereas genealogy can sometimes seem a narrow field of study (only being interested in someone if you are descended from them), by contrast the family historian seeks to understand the past through the lives of their ancestors and so the range of what constitutes ‘family history’ is almost endless. 

These days the trend seems to be increasingly towards family history and away from simple genealogy. Perhaps because, as more records become indexed and available online, finding births, marriage and deaths has become a lot easier than previously, meaning researchers have the luxury of concentrating on everything that went on in between. 

So, was Kim Cattrall’s search for her grandfather a suitable subject for WDYTYA? Well I suppose that depends on whether you view WDYTYA as a programme about genealogy or one about family history. But, as a family historian, I would definitely say yes!

Living the Poor Life in Glasgow: Part Two

Back in October I blogged about the Poor Law Archives in Glasgow and the fact that not everyone was happy with the poor relief they were offered, especially if that involved going to the poorhouse. 

In contrast, whilst searching through some online newspaper archives this week I came across a report of a man who, according to the authorities at least, was a little too keen to spend time in the Glasgow poorhouse: 

The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland) 26th March 1902, p.8, col. 7. 

A LIKING FOR THE POORHOUSE.- Robert M’Ateer, 

an Irishman, was charged at Glasgow Sheriff Sum- 

mary Court yesterday with contravening the Poor- 

law Acts by becoming chargeable to the parish of 

Glasgow after the city authorities had, at this own 

request, sent him to his parish of settlement in 

Ireland. The evidence showed that accused, who 

was forty-three years of age, had been in the poor- 

house fifteen times. Sheriff Fyfe said that accused 

appeared to be one of those people who came over 

from Ireland and practically lived in the poorhouse. 

That sort of thing would not do; Glasgow was not 

going to keep all the vagrants who cared to come 

into it. Sentence of two month’s imprisonment was
passed.

The Gazettes Online: A resource worth exploring

I’ve just been listening to The National Archives Podcast by Audrey Collins ‘The London Gazette - not just the brave and the bankrupt’. 

This really struck a chord with me as, after getting more seriously into Genealogy, I read several articles about The London Gazette and its sister publications The Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes. “Very interesting,” I thought, “must take a closer look, but not the sort of place to find my humble ancestors.” 

Then, late one evening, I put my grandfather’s name into Google on a whim and was surprised to get a hit. I was even more surprised when I realised that I had found him in the London Gazette - twice! So, to underline the message of the podcast, I thought I would share a couple of examples from one branch of my family tree of ordinary individuals found in the London Gazette: 

THE LONDON GAZETTE, 6 DECEMBER, 1927. 

Page 7828 

Civil Service Commission - November 9, 1927. 

AFTER OPEN COMPETITION. 

Male Sorting Clerk and Telegraphist, 

Huddersfield, Douglas Sykes Wilkinson. 

(This is my grandfather, Douglas, aged 16, being appointed to his first job.) 

THE LONDON GAZETTE, NOVEMBER 20, 1903. 

PAGE 7246 

HUDDERSFIELD ELECTRIC LIGHTING 

(EXTENSION TO GOLCAR). 

Printed copies of the draft Provisional Order will be deposited at the said offices of the Board of Trade on or before the 21st day of December next, and printed copies of the draft Provisional Order, when deposited, and of the Provisional Order, when made, may be obtained at the offices of the undersigned, and at the office of the Clerk to the Urban District Council of Golcar aforesaid, and at the residence of Simeon Sykes, Surveyor to the Urban District Council of Golcar, in Swallow-street, Golcar, on payment of one shilling for each copy. 

(When it was proposed that electric lighting should come to the Yorkshire village of Golcar, copies of the Provisional Order could be obtained at the home of Douglas’ uncle, Simeon Sykes - actually he lived in Swallow Lane not Swallow Street.) 

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 29 AUGUST, 1918. 

PAGE 10136 

His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of the Military Medal for bravery in the Field to the under-mentioned. Non-commissioned Officers and Men:- 

68393 Bomdr. S. Sykes, R.G.A. (Hudders-field). 

(Simeon’s brother, Samuel Sykes, received an award for bravery whilst serving in the First World War.) 

Some of the problems associated with the OCR technology which enable the gazettes to be searched (and how to get round this) are discussed in the podcast. Looking at the Gazettes Online website today I was pleased to discover that the original printed indexes to the London Gazette are now available online from the early 19th Century onwards and can be downloaded as PDFs (you need to select a particular year and each year is covered by several volumes of indexes) so that, with a bit of patience, it should now be possible to find ancestors in the Gazettes who have previously proved elusive. So far, there only appear to be indexes to the Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes for 2002 onwards. 

I’ve recently been doing a little research into one of the ancestors of my partner and, inspired by the podcast, I decided to search for him in the London Gazette to see if I could identify his civil service appointment. No luck so far, but I did find him among the names of Insolvent Debtors, along with a list of seven previous addresses at which he was known. So, not just the brave and the bankrupt, but you may find someone among the bankrupt who you weren’t expecting!

I suppose the lesson here is, if something is available online, is free and is searchable by name, then it’s worth searching for the names of your ancestors, even if you think the chances of finding them are pretty slim.

19th Century 'Kirkings'

These days in the UK, Sunday is often a day spent at the pub, a chance to meet up with friends and relax at the end of the working week. A far cry from the early 19th Century when Sunday was spent going to church, you might think? Or perhaps not, if this outburst from the Kirk Session of Kilcalmonell and Kilberry, Argyll is to be believed: 

Kilcalmonell and Kilberry Kirk Session: Minutes 1821-33

NAS Ref. CH2/1423/1 - Pages 33-35 

At Kilcalmonell the 17th of April 1825 years The Kirk Session of Kilcalmonell met. Present the Moderator and Elders.

Among other matters the consideration of a practice too common in Country Parishes and in this also, of people meeting together after Divine Service in a public house profaning the Lord’s day by drinking and engaging in carnal conversations especially when collected together under the vulgar name of Kirking Came before the session when after a full discussion of the same the Members agreed in the following as their judgment in this Matter. 

That profanation of the Lord’s day is a sin of vast criminality to many awful prohibitions of the word of God condemned by several Acts of Parliament and acts of Assembly; and quite inconsistent with the profession of Christianity. And it appeared to the Session to be established beyond a doubt, that those meetings on the sabbath called Kirkings, are [a] most gross and heathenish violation of the sanctity of the Sabbath, by the indulgence which is given to the flesh in drinking and speaking; they unanimously resolved and do now resolve, by the blessing of God, to apply the discipline of the Church to the suppression of such unholy meetings. 

And give this public intima[tion] of their determination to deal with those who assemble in Kirkings on Sabbath day as with other transgressors of the law of God. And moreover that those keeping houses should take care not incur the penalty of the Civil Law annexed to keeping their houses open During Divine Service or disorderly during the rest of the Sabbath. And finally that the parties which occasion the Kirking shall be held as the leaders in the sin.

The Kirk may not have been able to prevent these 'Kirkings' but they did succeed in getting some of the individuals who participated brought before the Session and there are descriptions of two such events on pages 60-68 of the minutes.  At one of these 13 or 14 bottles of whisky were drunk by a group consisting of between 20 and 25 people - naturally, recollections were a little vague!

I looked at a few Scottish dictionaries and did a quick internet search but was unable to find any further reference to this particular type of Kirking so it is hard to know how widespread the practice was.  Although there does seem to be some similarity with the 'Kirking Feasts' which sometimes accompanied ceremonial attendances at church.

Remembrance Day: The Diary of a WW1 Nurse

As this week it was Remembrance Day, commemorating the official end of the First World War, I thought I would share a short extract from the diary of Lily Harris, sister of my great-grandmother Emily Harris. 

Lily was a trained nurse who in 1915 joined the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve (Q.A.I.M.N.S.R.) and spent much of the war serving in Egypt. 

Lily does not seem to have always had time to keep her diary regularly but this extract, dated 25th November 1918, describes how the news of the end of the war was celebrated where she was: 

Nov 25th 

This has been a very exciting day, hear definitely we are to take no more convoys & evacuate on alternate days, all cleared out by the 3rd of December. My ward has been emptied. Hand over equipment tomorrow. 

Several sisters go to Jerusalem tomorrow, 2 days leave, so now we are all wondering where will be our next stop & how soon we shall be home. 

On the 11th Germany signed the Armistice. We had a few little parties, two social evenings & a whist drive here in the mess & one evening “At Home” at the Club, they were all very enjoyable. 

Last Sunday we “The Nursing Staff” thought we must make our patients realise the war was ended, so gave them a supper, “Fresh Mutton & Vegetables”. They did enjoy it. 

Unfortunately, it was many months before Lily got to go home again. Her service record (held at The National Archives, Kew - Reference: WO399/3582) includes a letter she wrote from Suez in June 1919 requesting that she might be released from her contract and allowed to return to the United Kingdom as she had been serving abroad since May 1915. Although not absolutely clear, it appears she did not return to the UK until September or October 1919, after a medical board judged her to be suffering from Anaemia. 

This photograph dates from Lily’s time in Egypt and shows a group of QAIMNS nurses in their distinct uniforms. One of them may be Lily herself. 

There is a modern colour photograph of one of the capes worn by a QAIMNSR nurse on the Auckland Museum website.