While there are various church documents in the mainland repositories going back pre 1300, there are no surviving church registers or kirk session record books on Arran pre 1700 - the old St Bride's church which was located on the outskirts of the present Lochranza, belongs to that period. Any pre 1702 registers for Kilmory are likely to have gone up in smoke along with everything else when Kilmory manse burnt down on 7 November 1710 - the Book of Arran refers to a contemporary report which stated that "Nothing escaped but he (Mr Bannatyne), his wife and their servants, with their lifes, by leaping out at the windoues." The two main Arran Parishes are Kilmory (literally Church Mary, or St Mary's) on the westside and Kilbride (literally Church Bride, or St Bride's {or Bridget's}) on the east. Their records start as previously stated in 1702 and 1704 respectively. The two chapelry's that also had records were Lochranza and Shisken. Reference in church registers or kirk session records to St Bride's is therefore to the eastside mother kirk at Lamlash and not to the ancient St Bride's at Lochranza. FWIW, records which give "Kilmory, Shiskine, Lochranza." seem to refer to the westside mother kirk and it's two main chapelry's as a group, so the event may have taken place at any one of the three. Missing registers/record books is not an uncommon event - the Kirk Session record book for Kilbride starting in August 1749 is also missing. The volume for Kilmory up to 1762 may well have been lost when the kirk was rebuilt in 1785. As to control of the ministers, the livings of all the Arran churches were under the patronage of the Duke of Hamilton, while Church control came via the Presbytery of Kintyre and the Synod of Argyll - not perhaps the direction Linda was thinking of when she wrote of "the mainland" ? regards Peter