living relatives
This process involves using the records in reverse, working down from a known ancestor rather than up from you. Start by seeking the births of other children of the couple from whom you want to trace down.
You can then jump forward and seek their deaths, inspecting death records of people of the right age to see which has the correct parents’ names.
Once you have the right death record, you can see if they had married, and if so seek the marriage record and then search for the births of children (a short-cut would be if the informant of the death was one of the person’s children).
Up to 1901, use censuses to find out who people’s children were. From 1928 onwards, mothers’ maiden names are given in the birth indexes, so you can easily spot all the offspring
Naming difficulties
ScotlandsPeople offers the option of using Soundex, a system that groups surnames together by common groups of consonants. It’s a good way of alerting you to possible variants, but it will not reveal all possibilities, and it is not based on specialist knowledge of surnames: the possible variants that it throws up may never have been used in real life.
Soundex helps by bringing together surnames starting M’, Mc and Mac. Some confusion can be caused by alternative Christian names (Jane might be recorded as Janet, Alexander as Alex or Allistair, William as Wm) so besides using Soundex for the forename, try simply keying in the initial letter: this will pick up any names starting with it.
Many Scots names were duplicated, and you will find lots of Alexander MacDonalds or Jean Hamiltons. If the censuses reveal a sibling with an unusual forename, try seeking that child’s birth instead.
of a certain couple. Between 1901 and 1928 you may have to check all possible births in the registration district.
Adoption
Many children used to be fostered or adopted unofficially, without written records. The only clue you may have is not being able to find the child’s birth registered under the names it grew up with – but you will seldom know for sure.
Nowadays, two men who think they are related through the male line (sharing the same father-to-father genealogical connection, often suggested by sharing the same surname) can have a DNA test. Their Y-chromosome signatures should be virtually identical. If they’re not, this could be due to an illegitimacy, or act of infidelity somewhere back in the family tree, or an undisclosed adoption.
Since 1930, adoption has been organized and recorded by the state. The child’s original birth entry will be stamped to indicate that adoption had taken place, but the child’s new identity will not appear. The child’s new birth certificate, issued at the time of adoption, will be in the Adopted Children Register, though this will not show the original identity. The GROS will only reveal the link between new and old identities to adoptees aged 17 or over or to a local authority providing counselling. The record will also state the date of the adoption order and the sheriff’s court in which the order was made. Adoptees can then apply for copies of these otherwise secret sections of the records. The amount of detail will vary considerably, but if the records reveal that an adoption agency was involved, you can contact them, as in some cases they may still know where one or both of the natural parents are now.
If the adopted person has died, their next of kin may write to any sheriff’s court in Scotland and request access to the deceased person’s details. The sheriff will decide the case depending on merit. Increasingly, permission is being granted for genealogical interest, although medical reasons are a surer way of securing a positive outcome.
Birthlink (21 Castle Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3DN, 0131 225 6441, www.birthlink.org.uk) offers counselling and help to families affected by adoption. It maintains an Adoption Contact Register, whereby adopted children, or families from whom a child was adopted, can register their whereabouts and willingness to be contacted by relatives. See Search Guide for Adopted People in Scotland (Family Care, 1997) and the Birthlink website for more information on this sensitive subject.
The four Walters
The first page of the Hooks’ family bible, starting with the birth and marriage of the second Walter.
The proclamation of the marriage of the second Walter Hooks and Helen Laird Caldwell.
When Walter Hooks was christened in 1904, a special picture was taken of him with his father, Walter Hooks, his grandfather, Walter Hooks and his great-grandfather – also called Walter Hooks! Because the last Walter died in 1989, this picture encompasses four generations and 167 years of Scottish family history.
Walter Hooks the first
b. about 1822/3 in Irvine, Ayr
d. 5 February 1908, Saltcoats, Co. Ayr
Walter was a pilot on the River Clyde, whose work took him from his native Irvine to the harbour town of Ardrossan, five miles (eight kilometers) away, and later to Govan by 1881, though he returned to Saltcoats, next to Ardrossan, where he died. He was named after Sir Walter Scott, said to be a relative, but more likely simply because the family enjoyed reading Scott’s novels.
Walter’s death shows that he complimented ‘the four Walters’ by having four wives of his own! The death record provides his age – 85 – and takes us back a generation before the photograph, to his parents Edward Hooks, a muslin weaver of Irvine, and his wife Janet Elder. Edward’s own death record from 1868 names his parents as David Hooks, a tidewaiter (see p. 111), and Susan Ball. The family were pretty local to the area, for Black’s The Surnames of Scotland refers to Adam de Huke, a tenant in Moffat, Dumfriesshire, which is only about 60 miles (96 kilometers) south-east of Irvine, right back in 1376.
Walter Hooks the second
b. 23 March 1847
Saltcoats
d. 16 November 1915, Johnstone, Co. Renfrew The 1851 census shows young Walter aged three (see page 56), living not with his parents but with his mother’s father William Love, a weaver at Windmill Street, Ardrossan, Co. Ayr, who was born there about 1791 – an unexpected extra for the family tree. Walter started work as an iron moulder and pattern maker (making moulds for casting iron goods), a job that caused him to move to Paisley and later Johnstone (about 15 miles or 24 kilometers north-east of Ardrossan), where he died.
Ancestors’ occupations can be discovered from family
