Parish Marriage and Birth records

Above we have a copy of part of a page from the Parish records for Killin Perth, Scotland in the year 1751. This section of the page is dealing with the month of July. I don't know what the first one or two highlighted words are. It looks like "Endem die" to me. But whatever it is it is something used regularly because, see, I have hightlighted it in the same context four other times in this same area. Maybe it is a town? (Don Drummond wrote me, clearing up this mystery - Eodem die is Latin for "on the same date".) Anyway, the sentence highlighted in yellow reads "Malcom and Christian McNaughtan there had their lawful daughter baptized called Katherine." This would be July 13, 1751. Arnold McNaughton's information do not have her date of birth, or place, nor was Malcolm's wife's name previously known. Everything fits for this to be the correct record for Katherine's birth. Though of course with all the McNaughtons living in this area, all with similar names, we could not be certain this is the birth record of our Katherine. The surname is spelled McNaughtan, with an "a". This was the generation of the old MacNachtan clan that was beginning to spell their surname a new way. One line of Malcolm's children spelled the name with an e: McNaughten. And Thomas's descendants spelled their name with an "o": McNaughton, which became the most common way.

The record above is from the old book of Fortingall, Perthshire, Scotland Marriage Records for 1772. The highlighted entry reads "Dec 8. Duncan M'Naughton & Katrin McNaughton Booked in Moar & in this Parish were Lawfully Booked". "Booked" means registered in the Parish marriage book. The town of Moar Perth was teeming with McNaughtons at that time and is located about ten miles from Killin Perth

The page above comes from the Kilmonivaig Inverness Parish Session Book of 1780. The yellow area highlighted contain two entries, the birth records first of Donald and then Finlay MacNaughton. They read as follows: "Donald, son to Duncan MacNaughten Kett McNaughten, at Corrichorly born on 7th Dec, 1778." Note that Donald's actual birthdate is 2 years different from the 1776 birth year that was hitherto believed to be the year of his birth.The second entry reads: "Finlay, son to Duncan MacNaughton & Kett MacNaughten, born 24 Dec 1781." Of the six children of Duncan and Kett only the births of Donald and Finlay were recorded in the parish records --  and both of their entries were added in 1782, four years after Donald's actual birth. Now for the reason why...

Statement in the Kilmonivaig Parish Record Book regarding Catholics registering births late.

"This irregularity in the Session Records is owing to the Roman Catholics refusing to pay the Dues of their Baptisms until they were prosecute before a Justice of Peace Court, which was done in the 5th of September, 1801 and a Decree obtained against them on the 12th of said month. Some other regularities with respect to late proceeding this were owing to the same cause."

If you look closely at the Parish records you will see that the Protestant church-going people had no problem obeying the law and registering the baptisms of their children as the law required, and in good order, never late. It was the law in Scotland that every person went to church on Sunday. So there was no problem registering their children's baptisms the very Sunday they happened. But not so for the Catholics. Catholics continued to worship in their own way, in secret, and they resented that the law forced them to register the births of their children in the Protestant church and pay dues there. Good Catholics tried to stay holed away in their homes and avoided the constables and soldiers as much as possible. There is reason to believe that the Dunderave McNaughtons returned to the Catholic faith between the years of 1660 and approximately 1750, at which time they became Protestant again. I intend to write a full article about this at the earliest opportunity.

Above we have a page from the Kilmonivaig Inverness Parish Records book of 1799 - 1800. The entry reads: "1800, Feb 12. John MacPhie, Shepherd Powlery and Katherine MacNaughten, servant Fiendrick were married." I have not as of yet been able to identify the place called "Powlery". It was probably the name of a farm.

The Kilmonivaig, Inverness Scotland Parish Marriage Record for John MacPhie and Katherine MacNaughten, Finlay McNaughton and Andria Black, and John Young and Christena McNaughton.

A page from the Kilmonivaig Inverness Parish Records for 1806 - 1809 is reproduced above. We see highlighted the actual entry from the Session Clerk: "Finlay McNaughton Fiendrick and Andrea Black servant, in the same place were married on the 10th day of May, 1807. Notice also two entries down: "Angus Boyle and Kett Black servant Fiendrick were married on the 10th May 1807. So it appears that Andria and her sister Kett were married on the same day. Perhaps this clue will eventually help someone trace the Black family back further.

As I have mentioned before, Arnold McNaughton was not able to access Scottish Parish Records as easily as we do today, thanks to computers and the internet and therefore he did not ever discover the actual  marriage records for John Young and Christena McNaughton. The highlighted entry reads: "John Young Squire Wright and Christy McNaughton servant at Greenfield were married on the 22 December 1809." This is a very interesting entry as it gives us a couple of nice bits of information. "Squire Wright"! "Squire" means John Young was a rural landed proprietor. "Wright" means "artificer". It sounds like John had a shop that made something. Since they raised sheep my guess is that John Young made wool cloth, perhaps tartans. The other interesting thing is that Christy was a "servant" at Greenfield. We know that her father Duncan died at Greenfield. Seems peculiar to me that the "Squire" would marry a "servant". But --  Arnold McNaughton's information strongly indicates that Duncan died very young, leaving his wife Katherine to raise a brood of children. It seems possible to me that Duncan might have owned holdings in Greenfield and after his death some sort of deal was made with the Young family to enable the debts to be paid and Duncan's widow and her children to be able to remain there. Perhaps part of the deal was that Christena would marry John.

More coming... Keep checking back...

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Some of us McNaughton descendants live a long long way away from Scotland and as a result have no idea where any of these placenames are located. This map may help  them gain some perspective. The area pictured is basically the Highlands of Scotland. Our Uisneachdan Pict ancestors lived here 2000 years ago. They were the royal family of the Pict peoples, the people of three Pict Kings who bore the name Nechtan. When our McNaughton family was forced out of our castle of Dunderave on Loch Fyne in the early seventeen hundreds they simply returned to live in their ancient lands of Perth, amongst the numerous McNaughton folks. The map on the right shows the towns that were important to our folk.

There in Glen Lyon Thomas died around the time of Culloden, 1746, presumably from wounds sustained there. In Balmenoch Malcolm died, and there are indications that McNaughtons of our line lived there for generations. There in the Glen Lyon town of Killin Kett was born in July of 1751, and there in Moar on the Glen Lyon River Kett married Duncan. The distance from Moar to Balmenoch is about five miles. The distance from Moar to Killin is about ten. Our ancestors lived within this area for sixty years -- from the time they left Dunderave, around 1715, until they relocated to the Torlundy area around 1775. Duncan and Kett's eldest son Donald taught school. All of his children's birth records refer to him as the "teacher of Torlundie". Donald's sisters and brothers were shepherds in the nearby area. There within a few miles of Torlundy they all lived, for around fifty years, until they emmigrated to Canada in 1821 and 1831.