2011- 27 February - "Dirty Books" for Missionaries

We spend 37 1/2 hours each week in the National Archives of Scotland taking digital images of Scottish records, but anyone checking our blog would think we spend Monday - Friday seeing Scotland and one day each week imaging!  Since the reverse is the absolute truth, we thought it might be good to share some of the interesting things we've seen and done during our daily work in our camera room.

This image isn't of one of the missionaries, but it illustrates why we've all taken our turns sneezing over the dust coming off old parish records when they come in.  We get volumes that are court records (usually well kept, clean and well bound), a few military records, and parish records from any parish church throughout Scotland that might want their records digitally preserved (these are often moisture-damaged, in poor condition, musty and dusty).  The court records are easiest to image, but the parish records are the most interesting (as if we really had time to read many pages since we're capturing 30,000-40,000 images/week with just two fulltime missionary couples plus our supervisor remaining on our project). 

We have all found goose quill trimmings in the pages of the books, but finding the whole quill pen was a real surprise.  One of the camera operators (men operate the cameras and the sisters quality check -QC- their work on separate computers at the front of the camera room) found this pen stuck in the spine of an old book.  As the quills were used, they become dull from wear, and a "pen-knife" was used to trim a new point.  Thus the term "pen-knife."   

This is a page from one of the oldest books we've actually imaged while we've been here.  The date on this page is 1598 from Peebles (413 years ago), which is a quaint little town south in the Borders.  The Scots have done an amazing job of preserving their history and keeping records and you feel a real reverence for these very old books when you touch their fragile pages, written in iron gaule ink (brown) with a quill pen. 

Seldom have we personally imaged records with this much genealogical value so when we get a real nugget like this Birth and Baptismal Record from Hawick (pronounced Hoyck), we all get excited.

The camera tables and operators move so quickly turning the pages that catching a hand in your image is not uncommon (which is why we QC all of our volumes!).  This beautiful hand belongs to Elder Iverson!

The explanation in red ink on the right hand page of the image above merely states that numbers were skipped and not used in this book.  Note how long the explanation for that error is compared to the page we insert today (below) when there is a pagination error in a volume.  Life must have been slower in days gone by as some of the handwritting done by quill pen looks like an art form and appears to have been done on a machine it is so beautiful and precise (the above image isn't one of those beautiful entries).  Often the date is written out in long hand rather than using numbers . . . one thousand eight hundred and forty eight rather than 1848 and the page number is written "Page Five Hundred Twenty Fourth." 

Here is evidence of the influence of the church in the early 1800's.  This is the meaty first page of the "trial" by the church of a young woman who had given birth five months previously while she was unwed.  I happened to catch a phrase or two as I was QCing this record early in our mission and stopped to read the story (which unfortunately never happens now as our current collection is court records with no juicy stories-deeds-and we're too busy to even think, let alone stop and read the images now).  This girl was ordered to "compear and confess her crimes" before church leaders in Stow.  She testified that the said child was begot in the shed at the end of his house after the Little Fair at Selkirk in 1818, and she named the father, who was a married man.  He was then "compeared" to appear and denied being the father and claimed to be returning from work on the evening of the "crime."  She was called back for cross-examination and asked the times of the act so that they could learn if he had an alibi for those specific times.  The married man (who lived in another parish) was compeared to appear again and given the times for which he needed an alibi.  He failed to return with his alibi.  The record stops then until there is an entry in his home parish in 1826 stating that he has never come forward with an alibi, his case is referred to a higher reverend and he is found guilty of the crime after nearly seven years.  Nearly every village in Scotland has their own parish church (kirk) and the kirk leaders had the power to control people's lives.  Today those beautiful stone parish churches with their stained glass windows are sparsely attended, sold for YMCA's and condo units, or boarded up and totally unused as religion is almost dead among the youth of Scotland.  Times have certainly changed over 200 years.