Did you know that you can search for your Scottish convict by name in the catalogue of the National Archives of Scotland?

I didn’t until recently. I am researching one John Graham who, it was claimed on his death certificate, arrived in the colonies when he was about 16 and spent may have spent some time in Tasmania. A search of all the usual arrival options to New South Wales proved unsuccessful but there was a suitable candidate transported to Van Diemen’s Land at a young age.

Further research at the excellent Archives Office of Tasmania digitised content website showed that this John Graham came from Scotland. His 7 year term was timed perfectly for him to serve it, move to New South Wales, get married and start his family.

The catalogue of the National Archives of Scotland has indexed convict trial records by name. A search for the name John Graham gave far too many results to be useful, but narrowing the date range down to when I knew (from the Tasmanian records) that his trial took place, and there he was. Twice.

The precognition (AD14/39/95) showed that he was tried with Thomas McKay, who appears next to him on the convict indent. Under the heading  ’Accused’  they are both named, as is his father and his father’s occupation, and their residence:

John Graham, son of Peter Graham, weaver, Small’s Wynd, Dundee
Thomas McKay, son of Donald McKay, painter, Hawkhill, Dundee

The trial papers (JC26/1839/5) give even more information:

John Graham, son of Peter Graham, weaver, Small’s Wynd, Dundee, Verdict: Guilty, Verdict Comments: Guilty in terms of own confession, Sentence: Transportation – 7 years. Note: Pannel cannot write.
Thomas McKay, son of Donald McKay, painter, Hawkhill, Dundee, Verdict: Guilty, Verdict Comments: Guilty in terms of own confession, Sentence: Transportation – 7 years. Note: Pannel cannot write.

Requesting copies of these records is not so straightforward, but it can be done. It appeared that the only way to do so from the other side of the world was to request a quote by email, so I wrote to the enquiry email address enquiries@nas.gov.uk asking for one, giving the first reference that I’d found.

I got an email back a few days later with a very detailed list of what was in both files:

Precognition (ref: AD14/39/95)

A Precognition is the written report of the evidence of witnesses to a crime, taken before the trial in order to help prepare the case against the accused. This particular Precognition contains the following items:

• Bound Precognition, this includes the witness statements and the declarations of both John Graham and Thomas McKay [74 pages]
• Printed Indictment [7 pages]
• Inventory of Papers in Precognition [3 pages]
• Schedule [2 pages]
• Petition [6 pages]
• Letters [2 pages]
• Supplementary Schedule [2 pages]

74 pages of witness statements and declarations! Priceless!

The Court Process Papers (ref: JC26/1839/5) contain the following items:

• Handwritten Indictment [13 pages]
• Diligence [2 pages]
• List of Assize [2 pages]
• Execution against John Graham [2 pages]
• Execution against Thomas McKay [2 pages]
• Execution against witnesses [4 pages]
• Declaration of John Graham [4 pages]
• Declaration of Thomas McKay [4 pages]
• 2^nd declaration of John Graham [4 pages]
• 2^nd declaration of Thomas McKay [4 pages]
• Extract Conviction [5 pages]
• Complaint against Robert Burt, James Downie, Duncan Carswell, James Robertson and Thomas McKay [2 pages]
• Extract Certified Copy Complaint [4 pages]
• Complaint against Archibald Paterson & John Graham [2 pages]
• Complaint against John Graham [2 pages]

I was also given the option of a Minute Book entry:

The Minute Book Entry (ref: JC11/86)

This is a handwritten summary of the proceedings in court, and includes the charge, the plea and the sentence handed down [2 pages]

The quote was given separately for each file, and was not for the faint-hearted, although considerably cheaper than a trip to Edinburgh. We are going ahead with it, so I’ll report on what comes back when the package arrives.

Payment is by cheque on a British account (which I don’t have) or an international money order, or by credit card over the phone. They hope to provide online payments in the future. Postage and packing is included.

As much as I wish that they offered a similar service to the National Archives of Australia where you can pay a small amount to have something they intend to digitise scanned early, such as the World War II service files, I am still impressed that I was able to do so much from my PC here in Sydney.

I can’t wait for the copies to arrive!

Image by courtesy of the National Archives of Scotland

ScotlandsPeople, the site that gives us Scottish parish registers, civil registrations, wills and more, works on a pay-per-view system where credits expire after 90 days. If you buy some more after the old ones have expired the old ones are reactivated, so you don’t lose them completely.

They have issued an announcement to the effect that you can reactivate old credits on a one-time only basis without buying new ones.

ScotlandsPeople would like to offer all customers who have existing credits in their account the opportunity to re-activate and use the credits at no cost through the use of a voucher code. We are doing this to allow customers who have expired credits to take the opportunity to use these without making a purchase.

All customers who have existing credits can now use the free voucher code SCOTLANDSPEOPLE which will re-set the credit expiry to 90 days in their account. Customers may use this voucher any time until 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 17th June, 2010. The voucher may only be used once in each account.For information on how to use the voucher code, click here.

It’s quite easy. Just log in, click on the Need More link, and enter the voucher code SCOTLANDSPEOPLE. Your credits will now expire in 2160 hours, and no money will have changed hands.

They have made this offer available until 17 June 2010, so do it now before you forget!

An announcement from World Vital Records:

World Vital Records is announcing the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006.

To commemorate this milestone, for the first time World Vital Records is offering FREE PUBLIC ACCESS to its entire online collection beginning August 11 through August 13, 2009. This is a perfect opportunity to participate in this incredible promotion.

This is a great opportunity to have a look around at the Australian content in this site, mostly, but not only, provided by Archive CD Books Australia.

Just click on the link below!

If you haven’t visited ScotlandsPeople, the official government website for Scottish Genealogical data, recently you may have missed some of the more recent developments:

OPR Deaths and Burials

Old Parochial Registers (OPRs) of baptisms and marriages have been available on ScotlandsPeople for a long time. They allow searching of indexes by names and places and parents names and the downloading to you computer of an image of the relevant page in the register. Burials are now included in this collection for the first time.

Scottish churches were not especially enthusiastic about recording burials. Even where burials were recorded registers were subsequently lost or destroyed through neglect. Do not be surprised if your ancestor’s death does not appear.

Even if an entry does appear it may reflect the date of payment for hire of the mortcloth (draped over the coffin or the body for the funeral) rather than the date of the death or the date of the burial, with no indication of which date is recorded. 

More information about this collection can be found here.

1881 Census

Up until recently the 1881 Census of Scotland was represented by an index only – the index created by the LDS Church. The 1881 Census has been re-indexed and digitised in the same manner as the other censuses. There is now two versions of the 1881 Census of Scotland on ScotlandsPeople. 

More information can be found here.

Source

ScotlandsPeople. Website. http://scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?1263.

From the webpage of the new Digital Microfilm pilot project of the National Archives in the UK:

Introduction

Digital Microfilm is a project piloting a new way to deliver records online. The National Archives has a large collection of microfilmed records, and by making these available online we hope to increase their accessibility. This will ultimately allow the microfilm readers used at The National Archives, Kew to be retired.

We have digitised four records series of military and naval records. If the project is successful, we intend to add a wide variety of record series covering many different areas of interest. Many of the records are indexes and we hope that these will be helpful in locating other relevant records.

The new way of delivery is by using very large pdfs, each of which contains a whole piece, which could be up to 800 pages long. This means that Digital Microfilm is only available to online users with a broadband connection, and to users in the Reading Rooms at The National Archives.

These records have not been indexed, and so you will need to scroll through the pdfs, much as you would when using a microfilm. However, we would be more than happy for users to transcribe any of the Digital Microfilm content, and post it on Your Archives, The National Archives’ online community of records users.

These documents are free of charge to download. If you try out the Digital Microfilm pilot, we would be grateful for your comments.

Browsing the documents

The Digital Microfilm pilot means that we have made entire pieces available free of charge. We have not indexed the detail within the records and so you would not be able to search them in the same way as you could search for a medal card, for example. Instead you will need to scroll through the pdfs, much as you would when using a microfilm.

You can use our Quick and Advanced search forms to search for the full catalogue reference, for example WO 144/1. Alternatively there is also a specific search form for these documents.

If you are unsure which catalogue reference interests you, we would recommend searching the Catalogue first. In each of our guides to the records below, we have included a link to the catalogue entry for each collection to help you with your search. When you are viewing the catalogue entry for a piece which interests you, click on the ‘Request this’ button and follow the instructions to download the item.

Technical Requirements

These are large pdf files, and you will need to have a broadband internet connection in order to download them. It may take your computer some time to download each file. Once you have downloaded the pdf file, we recommend that you save the document to your computer for future reference.

These are large files to download, being on average 400MB. You may wish to contact your broadband provider to check whether large downloads will incur a cost to you.

To view the pdfs you will need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. Read more about Adobe Reader

When printing from these files, be careful that you do not opt to print the whole document, because some of them are over 800 pages long. Instead, specify which page numbers you would like to print.

I’ve tried this and although it’s slow it does work. I downloaded a coastguard file from Ireland which was 314MB. I have a broadband connection but we must remember that the speeds we get in Australia are very slow compared to other countries.

The files that are available so far are probably of limited use to NSW genealogists. The names in the files are not indexes so you have to have an idea that you might find something useful in them to start with, and then go looking. The usual problems of reading old handwriting and microfilm quality are apparent.

Notwithstanding the problems I think this is a brilliant way to get records out there quickly. If we were to wait for the National Archives staff or volunteers to index the records we would be waiting for many years. The alternative is for a commercial company like Ancestry or FindMyPast to do it. Searching would be easier but the cost is a factor and the perceived value of these records may be such that they may not get around to them for some years.

Show you support for this project by giving it a go. The more people they have using it the more successful they will see it, and hopefully the more records they add.

The webpage is here.