FIFE FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY

PRE 1855 FIFE DEATHS INDEX - BOOKLET

This is the text taken from the booklet which accompanies the pre 1855 Fife Deaths Index CD-ROM. If you have ordered the CD ROM you may find it useful to print these details to accustom yourself to the facts you may find. If you are thinking of ordering the CD ROM please browse the information and make up your own mind as to whether the purchase will benefit you. Our aim is to assist Fife researchers and to have only satisfied customers.

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Pre-1855 Fife Deaths Index CDROM

Please look on this booklet as a general guide on how to locate entries that may be of interest to you, It will point out some of the uses of the various 'find' features and also the best methods to try should your first search fail to find that elusive ancestor.

USING THE SOFTWARE By Donald Manson

 The first view you will be faced with is that of a Grey box showing a Filing Cabinet, you should left click anywhere on that screen to proceed. This takes you to a screen showing a large filing cabinet with 9 icons at the top of the screen, for searching purposes icons 3, 4 & 5 show the 3 methods that can be used. Each icon will identify itself if you move your mouse over them.

Searching the Database

BUILD A QUERY

Icon 5 which depicts a magnifying glass is the multi-search feature, which enables you to search on more than one field.

Where it shows "No Field Selected" click on the drop-down arrow, and from here you can highlight which field you wish to search. Left click on the field required and this will become highlighted in blue, then move to the area highlighted next to this where you will see several circles followed by narrative. Click on the circle you require i.e. (equal to) and enter the name of the Parish e.g. Abbotshall or if you are unsure of the spelling of the Parish, click on the circle showing the narrative "like(use*)". [examples: Kilconquhar, by putting in Kil*ar, it will find all entries available for Kilconquhar or by entering Dun*line it will find 17,916 entries for Dunfermline]. If you wish only to search the particular parish you would then click on "compose the query" then "execute the query", after a few moments a box will appear advising you of how many entries your query returned and you will be invited to click on yes or no.Click on yes to see a report, if your answer is no, you will be returned to the original screen, you then simply click on "reset query" and enter another search. You can search for Dunfermline, then click on "add to the query" and follow the procedure to enter Surname search etc.

[Examples: Search-Dunfermline(17916 entries), Search-Dunfermline, surname Stenhouse(150 entries), Search-Dunfermline, surname Stenhouse, name Robert(10 entries)]

You can see that by adding more information you can narrow your search down. Please bear in mind in some instances Robert will be shown as Robt.and a search under Robert will not locate these entries, therefore entering Rob* should be tried.

When you click on yes, build a report, you should wait until the "Export Results", "View Results" and "Report" buttons are highlighted in Black and then click on either View Results or Report to be shown the findings.

Clicking on View Results will open up a spreadsheet showing the information you requested.

You can if you wish export these results to a .csv file to print out or send via e-mail. To retrieve the .csv file you should go in to your 'C' drive, locate the Masterbase programme and you will find your file in this folder.

Clicking on Report will open the results up in a report format which allows you to direct print, save to file or to send via e-mail as an attachment. Another feature in this format enables you to enlarge the view.

BUILDING A QUERY(Hints and Tips)

There are 9 search features shown on the dropdown list, but 1 is non-functioning (Year of Death).

PARISH:

A basic search on ANSTRUTHER will return 0 entries as there are 2 parishes of Anstruther-Easter & Wester. You should enter ANSTRUTHER EASTER or ANSTRUTHER WESTER, or if you have no idea which Anstruther to check simply use the *(wildcard) feature i.e. Anstruther*.

A search in St MONANS/St MONANCE should be entered as St Monans(no full stop after the t)

FERRYPORT ON CRAIG should be entered as this. N.B. Tayport was formerly known as Ferryport on Craig.

SURNAME:

The use of the *(wildcard) should be used whilst searching surnames, as in many earlier records they were phonetically spelt. An example would be Campbell, a search under Cam*l uncovers the following spellings: Campbell, Cammel, Cambl, Campbel, Camel, Campebill, Cambell, Cambel, Cambal and Camball.

NAME

This box is for entering Christian or forename. As with the Surname entries, the wildcard will be a useful feature. If you are looking for someone known by the Christian or Forename Charles, entering Charles would produce 946 entries, but entering Cha*s would produce 994 entries. This use of the wildcard brings in the entries notes as Chas, Charels, Charils, Charls, Charells, Chareels as well as those with second forenames ending in the letter s, example (Charles Forbes) Wilson.. Another example of the use of the Wildcard(*) would be entering Charles*, this produces entries for all known as Charles as well as those who have a second Christian name, the more useful entry would be Cha*, which covers all spellings of Charles and will include all entries with more than one Christian name, yes it will also uncover those known as Charlotte or Chapman, but it will find your great uncle who was known as George Walter or whatever second Christian name he was blessed with !

YEAR OF DEATH

This feature should not be used on the "build a query" search. You may search a year on the other 2 methods of search, Table View and Record View. Should you inadvertantly search Year of Death on the build a query search, you will get a message: Run-time error '3464': Datatype mismatch in criteria expression, with a box underneath showing Yes, click yes and the program will end. Simply start the program over again.

AGE

This feature can be used to search an exact age only, though bear in mind not all ages were shown in official records therefore you may not necessarily find your "man" using this feature.

ABODE

This is a very important feature to use should you be unable to locate your "man" in the Parish he/she belonged, for instance they may have been working away from home when they died, therefore their death entry will be noted in the Parish of death and not the Parish they were known to be from. Also as some of the sources used on the CDRom are Wills and Testaments, where no Parish name is shown, you must use the Abode feature in this instance. In the abode field it is advisable to enter the (*)wildcard after the Parish name as farm names or Village names are often entered after Parish names in this field.

Example:

If you enter: Markinch you will be shown 2,365 entries

if you enter: Markinch* you will be shown 6,736 entries, which will include entries where Farm or Village names are shown.

if you enter: *Balbirnie* which covers the names of a few hamlets within Markinch Parish, you will be shown 474 entries.

Another use of the (*)wildcard feature is, when you know the village your ancestor was from, but are unsure of the Parish.

Example: enter Thornton in the abode field and you will find 15 entries, however if you enter *Thornton this will return 289 entries including the 15 with only Thornton in this field. Part of Thornton "belonged" to Markinch Parish and part "belonged" to Dysart Parish, by using the (*)wildcard, entries entered as Markinch,Thornton and Dysart,Thornton will be found.

COUNTY

This field refers to the County Source i.e. Mi's(Monumental Inscriptions), OPR(Old Parish Records) and should be used in conjunction with the Source abbreviations shown in part 2 of this booklet.

You can use this feature should you wish to do the following.

example: enter Parish-Markinch, Surname-Wilson, County-OPR, you will be shown 79 entries for Wilson's taken from the Markinch Old Parish Records, or

example: enter Surname-Wilson, County-M*(which covers all abbreviations for Monumental Inscriptions), you will be shown 162 entries.

RELATED TO

This field will only show results where a relationship has been noted in the official records. The (*)wildcard feature will again be useful for this field. It can be used for searching any relationship, see the following example.

example: If you are looking for children of a Nathaniel Veitch, In the related to field, if you enter Nathaniel Veitch, you will be returned 0 entries. However if you enter Nat* you will be returned 64 entries where the relatives' name starts with Nat, on viewing the result you will find the death of a William Veitch in Flisk son of Nathaniel/Janet Smith.

This is just a guide and every permutation should be tried, it is a useful feature for locating previously unknown children.

OCCUPATION

Although this field is self explanatory you will only find entries where they were noted in records, and check all possible permutations of a particular ocupation.

example: Your ancestor or person you wish to find was known to be in the stocking trade, you should enter *stocking* this will return 22 entries, covering Stocking Merchant, Stocking Dyer, Stocking Maker, Stocking Weaver and also Hosier?Stocking Makr.

If your "man" was a coalminer again be wary that some entries are down as "miner" or "coalminer" or Collier", so you would use *miner in your search.

example: enter miner you will be returned 169 entries, if you enter *miner your return will be 206 entries. Enter Colli* and you will be returned 349 entries.

RECORD VIEW

Clicking on Icon 3 takes you to a Record or Individual view of each entry. On this view you can add your own notes to any particular entry and save these for future reference. It also has a find feature though on this view, you can only search on single fields.

To make an entry in the user notes, locate your ancestor and then click on "user notes" on the lower task bar, then click on the start of the notes box and enter your text, when you have done this, simply click save notes and your text will be saved along with the date and time you added the information.

Using the find feature is similar to the build a query finder shown above. In this view there are 8 fields to search on, though please note the titles of 2 fields are not correctly titled.

The field shown as OCCUPATION is actually the "Related to" search field.

The field shown as RELATED TO is actually the "County Source" search field

Once you have used the find feature, use the arrows on the bottom of the screen to move to the particular entry you are looking for. The results of any search can be sent to another file on your computer. Alternatively you can click on report and from here send the data via e-mail to a friend.

TABLE VIEW

Clicking on icon 4 takes you to the Table view

The search criteria in this view is the same as in the Record view, except that this shows all entries on one page rather than individual entries.

In this view there are 8 fields to search on, though please note the titles of 2 fields are not correctly titled.

The field shown as OCCUPATION is actually the "Related to" search field.

The field shown as RELATED TO is actually the "County Source" search field

When your search reveals a list of entries, clicking on one of the rectangular grey boxes on the left of each entry will highlight the particular entry in blue, enabling you to check along the field paths.

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We hope that you will find this index useful and that you get many hours of enjoyment from it. Should you have questions not answered in the above guide, please contact us.

Donald Manson, September 2000

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WHERE NEXT ? (A SOURCE GUIDE) BY Andrew J. Campbell

Welcome to the Fife Deaths Index Cd-Rom. The Index was coordinated by Mr A J Campbell and Mrs May Sampson, helped by a small army of dedicated transcribers, checkers, and typists. The CD-Rom was prepared by Fife FHS member, Mr Jim Bisset of Crieff, with Mr Donald Manson playing a significant part in the transfer from computer disc to CD. Entries from the Fife Deaths will form part of the Scottish National Burials Index, coordinated by Mr Peter Ruthven-Murray (Chairman of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies) in a programme designed by Mr Peter Underwood.

There are over a quarter of a million entries in the Fife Deaths Index. With a data base of this size, no matter how good the checking, there will always be errors and omissions, and we apologise for these. Our aim from the outset has always been to compile a comprehensive index from as many sources as possible.

There are three ways of viewing the data: (1) In Table View (2) In Record View (3) In Report View (or Build a Query) . Donald Manson has written some notes on how to do all these. In Table View the following fields appear:

1. Surname

2. Christian Name. The names in these two fields have been input as written, although in certain circumstances (especially the gravedigger logs, where the spelling is terrible) there has been some modernisation and correction of spelling. With deaths taken from testaments, the spelling as given in the indexes prepared by the Scottish Record Society has been retained, as these indexes will have to be consulted to locate the Testament by date of registration, which has not been given in this compilation.

3. Parish. All parishes have been entered under their modernised spelling, and were repeated in the abode field. It is strongly recommended that when researchers are building up a query in order to obtain a report view that they use the abode field rather than the parish field for the following reason. The abode field was input at source. The parish field was input later "en bloc." This block pasting worked fine when the file contained only one parish (such as OPR, Kirk Session or MI file), but deaths were taken from a variety of other sources, such as testaments, wills, newspapers, books, court records, and so on, containing a variety of parishes. Here each individual parish would have had to be input again, a mammoth task. To overcome this, you will find in the parish field the word VARIOUS, which means that the source from which the death was taken contains a variety of parishes. We repeat: use the abode field rather than the parish field when building up a query.

4. Title Listed below are the following abbreviations that you will find in this field, and their meaning:

Abbrev.	Meaning
Bai	Bailie
Cap	Captain
Col	Colonel
Cpl	Corporal
Dam	Dame
Doc	Doctor
Gen	General
Hon	Honourable
Ldy	Lady
Lt	Lieutenant
Ltg	Lieutenant General
Maj	Major
Mag	Major General
Mis	Miss
Mss	Mistress
Mr	Mister
Mrs	Mrs
Oth	Other Title
Pro	Professor
Pvt	Provost
Rev	Reverend
Ser	Sergeant
Sir	Sir

5. Death. All dates before 1600 have been entered under the modern calendar. Where no date of death has been given (such as in a Testament) and the year unsure, only three digits in the year have been given, with the last represented by a dot - eg 178. (meaning that the death took place sometime in the 1780s).

6 Age. When the figure alone is entered this represents the age in years. A plus sign (+) following an age indicates that more exact age details have been given in the entry and that the person is older, for example, by several months, quarter of a year, half a year - but the age in years is still represented by the figure. Similarly a minus sign (-) indicates that the person is younger. The symbol c. has been used to indicate circa (eg c.50 = about 50). When no age is given either the field has been left blank, or the abbreviation nk (not known) used. For those under 1 year old the initial letters of the month, week, day and hour have been used to represent these. Thus: m = month; w = week; d = day; and h = hour. In this field you will also find words and abbreviations that give indications of age, for example:

chd	child
inf	infant
old	old
youth	youth
lass	lass
girl	girl
lad	lad/boy

7. ABODE. Abodes have been entered as parish, followed by place name, with a comma separating both. Where necessary, the placenames have been changed to their modern spelling. Where a place name falls outside the parish, the parish in which that place-name is located has been entered, even although it may not appear in the entry. Once again, we repeat, when building up a query in order to obtain a report, use the abode field rather than the parish, as this will give you entries from wills, testaments, newspapers, etc, which will be missed in the parish field, where these appear under the word VARIOUS. Also when using the abode field, get into the habit of typing in the wild card symbol (upper case 8) following the parish. For example searching out all the John Smiths in Abdie* will provide you with all the John Smiths in Abdie and the placenames within Abdie; whereas typing in Abdie only you will miss the place-name entries.

8. Source. A full list of sources and their meaning can be found at the end.

9. Extra. In this field you will find up to three-lettered codes pertaining to the deceased and which refer to information to be found in the last field, in the case of Table-View named Additional Details, and in that of Record View named Text, but both fields contain the same information. Here are a list of codes to be found in this field, and their meaning:

A	Abode Details
B	Burial Lair Register
C	Cause of Death
E	Died/Buried Elsewhere
F	Fasti
I	Inquest
J	Described as Junior/Younger
L	Location of Death
M	Monumental Inscription
N	Newspaper Death/Report
O	Other Details
P	Occupation Details
Q	Described as Esquire
R	Relationship Details
S	Described as Senior/Elder
T	Title Details
Y	Age Details

C for Cause of Death is always given first

10. Reference. This field pertains to the reference of the source. Below are some handy references which you may find useful

CC8-8 = Edinburgh Testaments

CC6-5 = Dunblane Testaments

CC20-4 = St Andrews Testaments

CC21-5 = Stirling Testaments

SC20-50 Sheriff Court of Fife, Register of Inventories

The Testaments and the Sheriff Court of Fife Records can be found within the National Archives of Scotland, HM General Register House, Edinburgh EHI 3YY

11. Relationship/Position. This field describes the relationship of the deceased to the relative which follows.

Here are the codes you will find in this field, and their meaning:

br	brother [of]
ch	child [of]
co	cousin [of]
da	daughter [of]
dal	daughter-in-law [of]
fa	father [of]
hu	husband [of]
il	illegitimate child [of]
ild	illegitimate daughter [of]
ils	illegitimate son [of]
mo	mother [of]
mol	mother-in-law [of]
ne	nephew [of]
ni	niece [of]
re	relict [of]
rel	relict [of]
sbc	still-born child [of]
sbd	still-born daughter [of]
sbs	still-born son [of]
si	sister
sil	sister-in-law [of]
so	son [of]
sol	son-in-law [of]
sd	step-daughter [of]
spo	spouse [of]
ss	step-son [of]
wd	widow [of]
wi	wife [of]

You will also find status codes in this field. These codes again refer to the deceased, and are found when there is no named relative. Thus you will come across the following codes:

ba	bachelor
dis	dissenter
esq	esquire
fo	foundling
ge	gentleman
mm	middle-aged man
mw	middle-aged woman
om	old man
ow	old woman
ot	other status
pap	papist
pa	pauper
qua	quaker
sp	spinster
st	stranger
vi	virgin
wd	widow
ye	yeoman
ym	young man
yw	young woman

12. Name of Relation. This field has the next of kin of the deceased. You will find here also the occupation of the next- of kin (in lower case within brackets). You may find abbreviation or christian names and sometimes only the initial letter of the surname may be given, if it is the same as that of the deceased

13. Occupation. This field refers to the occupation of the deceased, and entries have been entered under the modern spelling. You will also find here, such terms as tenant, feuar, residenter, indweller, witch, etc. The titles of the monarchy and nobility have also been entered here. You will find the word burgess in this field, as there are burgess roles extant, which will help identify the person, and for those residing in St Andrews the word citiner. You may come across the following abbreviations:

HEICS - Honourable East India Company Service

NI - Native Infantry (eg Bengal Native Infantry)

14. X-Reference. Married women have been entered twice under their natal and married names, and you will find in this field the first four letters of the second surname for cross reference. This field has also been used for alias surnames, and for the modernisation of surnames (usually for grave-digger logs, where the spelling is terrible; with the entry being recorded twice, once under the original and corrupt spelling, and the other modernised).

15. Event. This field can be ignored.

16. Burial Field. This field has the date of burial. Mortcloth dates have also been treated as dates of burial. Where the entry is from a Kirk Session Record, more than likely these are mortlcoth dates. In the case of Leslie OPR, where the source is a cash-book, we have only entered the month and year in the burial field, as the dates conflict with an extant Leslie Lair Register (now in possession of Fife Council), in which the dates of burial should be regarded as the more accurate.

17. Index. This is a computer generated number linking the Additonal Details (Text) Field, and can be ignored.

18. Additional Details have been entered in this Text Field and correspond to the codes in the Extra Field (Field 9). The cause of death (if known) is always given first. Where entries have been contrasted with monumental inscriptions, you may find the following abbreviation, TS DOD, which means Tombstone, Date of Death. Where the source has been newspaper, whereever possible we have tried to put the full name of the newspaper, but due to the limited space in this field, abbreviations have had to be used. Below is a list of the newspapers consulted:

Fife Herald (FH), 1822-1854, pub Cupar

Fifeshire Journal (FJ), 1833-1854, pub Cupar

Fifeshire Advertiser (FA), 1844-1854, pub Kirkcaldy

Fife Sentinel (FS), 1843-45, pub Cupar

Stratheden Advertiser (SA), 1853-54, pub Cupar

Dunfermline Monthly Advertiser (DMA), 1835-40; 1852-54

Dunfermline Journal (DJ), 1840-1854 (with gaps)

Kirkcaldy Observer (KO), 1851-52

Pittenweem Register (PR), 1844-1854

The date of issue of the newspaper has been given, if a report/obituary notice accompanies the death. To obtain copies of these, you should write to the following Libraries:

1. St Andrews University Library, Keeper of Muniments, North Street, St Andrews, Fite KY1b 9TR for all the Cupar newspapers. and also for the Pittenweem Register (The Library has a bound volume of the Register from 1850-1854, while Nos 1-411 (Nov 1844-Dec 1852 were reprinted in the East of Fife Record of Anstruther between April 19 1895 and Jan 30 1903. The Library also has the East of Fife Record).

2. Kirkcaldy Central Library. War Memorial Grounds Kirkcaldy, Fife KYI IYG tor the Fifeshire Advertiser

3. Dunfermline Central Library, Abbot Street, Dunfermline for the Dunfermline Newspapers

4. British Library Newspaper Library, Colindale Avenue, London NW9 for the Kirkcaldy Observer.

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SOURCES/ABBREVIATIONS USED IN COMPILING CD ROM

ABBREVIATION USED	SOURCE	ABBREVIATION USED	SOURCE
ASS CONG RECORDS	Associate Congregation Records	LM MIDWIFE	Register of Deliveries kept by Nurse Margaret Bethune of Lundin Mill
ASSOC.CONG.	Associate Congregation Records	LUMS	House of Lumsden Association Records
AWA	History of Anstruther Family (1923) by Arthur Wellesley Anstruther	MiS	Monumental Inscriptions
BARONYLR	Dysart Barony Churchyard Lair Register	MIS	Monumental Inscriptions
BOOK	Various publications (noted in text)	NWSP	Newspaper
BURG	Burgh Records	OPR	Old Parish Records
CAMP	Books written by Andrew J. Campbell	OPR MORT	Old Parish Record Mortcloth details
CHAL	History of Dunfermline (1844) by Rev. Peter Chalmers	PHIL	Philp
CHYARD E.	Kettle OPR Lair Register	POOR	Parish Records (poor) Fife Council
CHYARD SOUTH	Kettle OPR Lair Register	POOR REGISTE	Poor Register
CHYARD WEST	Kettle OPR Lair Register	PRIME GILT BO	Prime Gilt Box Records
COLE	History of Leslie Family (1869) by Colonel Leslie	RCRD	The Heriots of Ramornie (1931) by R C Reid
CONP	History of Fife Pitcairns (1905) by Constance Pitcairn	RODG	Charles Rodgers
DUNF. ASSOC.	Dunfermline Associate Congregation Records	SAILORS SOCIE	Sailors Society Records
DYST DLR	Dysart St Denis Lair Register	SCOT	Scott
EMOF	Eminent Men of Fife (1866) by M F Conolly	SEA	Sea Box Records
EPISC. RECORD	Episcopal Records	SEA BOX RECORDS	Sea Box Records
EPISCOPAL RECORD	Episcopal Record	SEAB	Sea Box Records
ERBE	Erskine Beveridge	SEXTON BOOK	Sexton(gravedigger's) Book
FAM B	Various Family Bibles	SGS	Scottish Genealogy Society
FIFE COUNCI	Fife Council	SHERIFF COURT, INVE	Sheriff Court Inventories
FORGAN MI'	Forgan Monumental Inscriptions (1999) by W.Owen	SOFH	Services of Heir/s
FRAS	Sir William Fraser	SREG	Statutory Registration (1855)
FREE CH.	Free Church Records	STAG	St Andrews Guildry
FUPC	Fasti of United Presbyterian Church(small)	STEP	History of Inverkeithing & Rosyth by Rev Wm Stephen
JUST	Justiciary Records	TEST	St Andrews Testaments
KIRK SESSIO	Kirk Session Records	TEST DUNBLANE	Dunblane Testaments
KS	Kirk Session Records	TEST EDINB	Edinburgh Testaments
KS MORTCLOTHS	Kirk Session Mortcloth Records	TEST STIRLI	Stirling Testaments
LAIR	Lair Records	TEST WARRANT	Warrant Testaments
LAIR REG	Lair Registers	TULLIALLAN M	Tulliallan Monumental Inscriptions
LAIR REGIST	Lair Registers	WEBS	History of Carnock (1938) by Rev J M Webster
LAM D	Lamont's Diary	WILLS FI	Fife Wills in Sheriff Court of Fife, Register of Inventories
LARN	Larner Source-book of Scottish Witchcraft	WOOD	East Neuk of Fife. By Rev Walter Wood (2nd ed. 1887)

CORRECTIONS.

The Source and Reference Fields were added in later "en bloc." At least 3 files have failed - for Abbotshall, Elie and Dalgety. The source for all 3 is the OPR and the reference: for Abbotshall, Opr399; for Elie, Opr427-2; and for Dalgety, Opr422

The abode of Henry Balnaves should read Collessie, Halhill.

Early entries for the Barclay family should read Dunbog, Collernie

We will correct these errors in a later version of the Index.

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This has proved to be a huge work, and often we thought that it would never be finished. On these occasions we remembered the words of encouragement given by Dr Thomas Chalmers to the Rev Hew Scott when the latter was compiling his great work of Fasti: "Go on, Mr Scott, go on; the unborn will bless you sir." For us, a little thanks from the living will suffice.

Andrew J.Campbell September 2000

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