It will be all about Scotland at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa’s (BIFHSGO) monthly meeting on Saturday morning, January 13.
The good news for those of us who don’t live in Ottawa is that the meeting will be virtual and free, as will February’s meeting.
9:00 a.m. Eastern time
Ken McKinlay’s Back to Basics series resumes with Scotland.
We will be looking at the various collections and sites that can help us research our kin who came from Scotland.
10:00 a.m. Eastern time
You’ve Got Maill: Rent and Associated Agricultural Terminology in Scottish Records, circa 1500-1750 by Robert Urquhart
Family historians, when researching Scottish ancestry, come across terms covering agricultural weights and measures for produce and livestock in diverse records such as testaments, marriage contracts, bonds, rental agreements, leases and tax rolls, and even in civil, criminal and church court minute books. These words and phrases often concern the rental or ownership of land and buildings and the management of debt.
Dictionaries and word lists can help identify and explain the words and phrases concerned, but it is useful to have a grasp of the theory and implications of rent paid in agricultural produce as well as money, and how the value of agricultural produce was estimated.
This talk will not be an exhaustive list of Scottish weights and measures but will focus more on how these occur in early modern Scottish records, in conjunction with terminology such as rent/maill, liferent, annualrent and ferdcorn/thirdcorn. It will be part etymology, part legal theory and part social and economic history. Robert will discuss how certain key ideas were expressed in 16th to 18th century sources and will look at what the produce and livestock mentioned in records tell us about everyday life in early modern Scotland.
Register here for both presentations.
