Grandfather's Birth Record

Grandfather's Birth Record, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.
  

Examining the Actual Image

As you remember, I was explaining how I have had some success with records at ScotlandsPeople, starting with my paternal grandfather, Thomas Broadfoot. To make this clip of the record, I had to return to the saved images at Scotland's People. (This is the first post in this series.)


First of all, you should save each successful "image hit" at their Web site. I have now learned that it it not a good idea to just save the image to my hard drive. Saving it does make it easier to read offline. I can enlarge each section and try to read each letter. BUT, it doesn't save it with the header that appears here. I needed to go back to each one and record the information you see here at the top of this clip. (If you print it, this information will be printed.)

This record of his birth is a STATUTORY birth which means it is post 1855. Before that time, the records are called OPR or Old Parochial Register. This has to do with the law changing. It became Compulsory to record and turn in the vital records on 1 January 1855. This is refered to as GENERAL REGISTRATION of Scottish Records. It is abbreviated as GROS.  (England, Wales and Ireland have a similar method but I don't know that for sure.)

The records go from each parish to the main repository in Edinburgh. Until this information went online, you had to go to Edinburgh to get the "hatches, matches and dispatches".


Notice, the year is at the top, followed by the surname and the forename. Then it says Statutory Births and a number that I didn't know has meaning until two months ago. In this case, the 864 refers to Dalbeattie. The next number, which is 25, refers to the line number for each person. (See it?)

There is so much exciting information on each record, it is hard to stay focused. You will need the date you accessed it for your citations. See it at the top?