Collins Tracing Your Scottish Family History

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 papers. This letter of 1968 congratulates the fourth Walter Hooks on his retirement from the Prudential Assurance Co. (for which he had worked all his life, before and after his army service in the Second World War) and wishes him and his wife ‘many happy years of retirement together’.

Walter the fourth’s grandson Scott Crowley visiting Ardrossan in 2003.

Walter Hooks the third

b. 20 June 1877

Ardrossan, Ayr

d. 4 January 1968

Walter Hooks and Helen Laird Caldwell married in 1903 at the Village Hall in Elderslie, next to Johnstone, where she was a carpet weaver and he was ajourneyman (day-labouring) iron moulder. Family papers include a certificate of the proclamation of their marriage, and a telegram from the Queen congratulating them on their sixtieth wedding anniversary.

The death record of the first Walter.

Walter Hooks the fourth

b. 7 April 1904 at 6 Bankside Avenue,

Johnstone

d. 17 November 1989, Glasgow

Mrs Moira Crowley, daughter of the fourth Walter, showing the picture of the four Walters to some of her descendants. Young Matthew James, on the right of the picture, was born in 2004, 182 years after the birth of his great-great-great-great-grandfather, the first Walter, in 1822 (courtesy Mrs Moira Crowley).

CHAPTER 6 Censuses (#ulink_1d0d9313-646c-52ab-b27b-0674f39e70f6)

Hand in hand with the General Registration records march censuses. Those for 1841-1901 have been indexed on ScotlandsPeople, making them relatively easy to search.

Scotland’s censuses have been taken once every ten years since 1801 (except 1941, due to the Second World War). The most useful for genealogists are those between 1841 and 1901, which are all on www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk. The 1881 census is on the site, but instead of images of the returns you can only see a transcription (the originals can be examined on microfilm at the ScotlandsPeople Centre, and printed for a rather steep £8). The way the censuses are indexed on the site varies slightly, the indexes to 1891 and 1901 including ages, making them easier to search than the earlier ones.