Whitsome, Berwickshire

[Lesley Robertson]

My one place study began almost by accident. Historic Scotland decided to list my partner's house, so we decided to take a look at the history of the place. It rapidly became apparent that it was not possible to look at the house without also looking at the village and indeed the parish. In effect, the thing just grew.

I began, as most people do, with the census. I now have transcriptions of most of the available census information as well as the valuation rolls for the equivalent years. These are all in searchable databases. I am now busy transcribing memorial inscriptions, both for another database and for my website. I have another database which contains the index to the old parochial register for the Church of Scotland in the parish, and am now expanding this with transcriptions of birth, marriage and death certificates.

My website, for the moment, aims to provide information, which would not be easily found by people outside Edinburgh. For example, I have provided photographs of both war memorials, and lists of the parochial schoolmasters and ministers. These are linked to images of their family trees, when I have the data. I am also gradually, adding images of memorial stones and transcriptions.

[Lesley Robertson]

I've now updated the site, including some views of the burial ground showing the positions of individual stones, plus my transcription of the 1841 census with added data.

[Lesley Robertson]

I have now added photos and transcriptions (where possible) for the entire Old Burial Ground.

[Lesley Robertson]

I have now added material abouot some of the farms of the parish of Whitsome and Hilton, as well as descriptions of the life of 19th century Borders ag. labs. taken from a handbook published by a berwickshire famrer at the time.