Dabbling with YouTube… Here’s a a small photo video of my one-place study area in Orkney: North Walls and Brims. The population has dropped considerably since the 1850s, with brief but dramatic increases in the two world wars when there was a very high armed forces presence.
Blog category: General, page 17
The effectiveness of public rebuke?
The Kirk Session of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland played a major role in policing the behaviour of parishioners in past times. Fornicators, adulterers, drunkards, sabbath-breakers, quarrelsome characters and the like (see Walls Kirk Session records for examples) could be called to account for their behaviour, fined and eventually readmitted to communion. Public rebuke, chiefly | more…
Neptune’s baptism
A few weeks ago I came across a very unusual baptism record, dated 12 April 1750, in the parish of Kirkwall, Orkney. It was the baptism of “a Negroe usually called Neptune”. He was “in the service of Mr Fraser Officer in the Military” and, the record continues, “after having Resided several months in this | more…
