Alistair said: Yes, organised Christian religion was prominent in SCT from the year 1690 it seems (Fig 7 of Kathleen Cory's fine book) so I had wondered why the Scottish Record Office and other authorities referred to registers for 1500s! Examples, Aberdeen St Nicholas 1563, Anstruther Wester 1573. Maybe those had have been corruptly written up by "creative" Clerks.... ** Well, the Reformation in Scotland happened over a period, but was mainly 1559-1560 when the Catholic church was replaced by the reformers. The new authorities immediately started their new administration and wrote up their accounts for posterity, but many have not survived to the present day, and that's why so few are found at that early date. There is no indication that any session clerk overstepped the bounds of his office, but lots of indication of session clerks failing to keep decent records.[such as run off with a lady; gone to the Americas; or just died leaving large gaps in the register!]. Many former priests became ministers in the new church; and later when the Church of Scotland was forced by the king to become Episcopal, few ministers raised strong objections; and likewise in 1689 when the church returned to Presbyterianism. Many later registers were lost through fires, flood or dampness in a church loft; or taken away by a departing minister and not returned (some of these were handed back by the family centuries later!). Such are the vagaries of life. Gordon.