If you would like more information about the existence of Kirk Session minutes for this or another parish or would like to search for particular people in the minutes please Kirk session minute books and accounts will typically include weekly or monthly lists of paupers (residents and often unnamed vagrant poor) and sources of poors fund income.When looking for poor relief records prior to 1845, look in the kirk session and heritors' records for a particular parish. Paisley library has created an index to poor relief applications they hold for Paisley (including Abbey parish) covering 1839-1949. Available from £1 a name a year. Records.
Normally people receiving poor relief were unable to support themselves, either through age or incapacity. The care of the poor has been a concern to government, community, and religious leaders since the beginning of time. The records of the following institutions in NRS contain details of individuals:Destitution boards were set up after 1846 to cope with the widespread poverty in the Highlands, following the failure of the potato crop. We have not found any relevant records for this parish.No Roll of Male Heads of Families has yet been found for this parishThe records of the Kirk Session contain a variety of documents which detail many aspects of the daily lives of all types of people throughout Scotland from the 16th century onwards. In the Register House Plans series (RHP) you can find portfolios of architectural drawings for about 40 of Scotland's poorhouses, assembled by the Local Government Board and its successor, the Scottish Home and Health Department.Appeals by unsuccessful claimants were made to sheriff courts and some went on to the Court of Session. They included orphans, the sick or disabled and the insane. To order your copy, simply click on the Order now link in the table below.This is an index to the registers of school leaving certificate examination results (NRS Reference ED36). Most poor law records are not available online… The index can also be accessed through Stirling Council Archives have online poor relief indexes for fourteen parishes in Stirlingshire, including Stirling. Income was raised from church collections, fines on offenders and fees for carrying out sacraments and services, like the use of mortcloths at funerals. Such cases were known as filiation and aliment cases.
The court could order the father to provide maintenance payments to the mother. Poor Law appeals – Indexed Poor Law appeals with the option to order images of records. The society is running a project to transcribe and index poor relief records from the area and has an online index which currently covers Jedburgh and Melrose. Note: many repositories impose a closure period of up to 100 years for records identifying individuals.
Thank you goldie61, I got this information from Paisley Poor law Records and wondered at her being sent to Perth as she lived in Paisley and was sent from there. The Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Act of 1845 established Parochial Boards (later Parish Councils) in each parish. They (either solely or in conjunction with the heritors) operated a 'poors fund'. The Abbey Parish poorhouse was built at Craw Road in 1849, but it was not the first poorhouse in Paisley. We are pleased to be able to offer a search service in some of the records available for this parish. Will bookmark it and pop in regularly. We have not currently found any decrees for this parish. To begin with record keeping did not change much and there was quite a lot of overlap between the records of parochial boards, heritors and kirk sessions (as representatives of heritors and kirk sessions were on each parochial board and session clerks often acted as clerks to parochial boards and heritors' meetings).
These appeals were recorded in the Board of Supervision minutes. What are Poor Relief Records? Most of these and subsequent acts in the 15th and 16th centuries were aimed at dealing with the problem of 'sturdy beggars'.