> Regarding town names that can't be found. After spending many hours > pouring > over microfilms of Old Parish Registers > and trying to figure out where or decipher some of the "town" names, I > have > finally figured out that these may have not been actual towns but more > like the > common day address but without numbers and streets. The key fact is that in Scots the word 'town' or 'toun' can apply to what we would call a farm these days. In historical records it does not imply a settlement of any size. > The Old Parish Registers are based on regions that cover many of the > villages > or addresses. Well .... parishes, actually; most of which are much too small to be described as 'regions', but as you say, they usually contain numerous farms, a village or two and sometimes (but not always) a settlement of several thousand people, big enough to be described as a town in modern terms. > Example I have an ancestor that was registered in the parish of Dyke > (which > also happens to be a small village with a church and graveyard.) All parishes have a parish church and graveyard. In many, but not all, cases the church and graveyard is surrounded by a village which has the same name as the parish. In most other parishes the original church and graveyard is known as the 'Kirkto(u/w)n of [parish name]. This nice simple system begins to break down during the industrial revolution, when some places began to grow fast enough to outstrip the ancient parish system. You then get parishes where the largest settlement is a town or village which has a different name from the parish. Examples are Lossiemouth, parish of Drainie Burghead, parish of Duffus Archiestown, parish of Knockando Fochabers, parish of Bellie Buckie, parish of Rathven Tomintoul, parish of Kirkmichael [Banffshire] Lumsden, parish of Auchindoir Aberchirder ("Foggieloan"), parish of Marnoch Pitlochry, parish of Moulin Letham, parish of Dunnichen [Angus] Stenhousemuir, parish of Larbert Lennoxtown, parish of Campsie Coatbridge, parish of Old Monkland Airdrie, parish of New Monkland Wishaw, parish of Cambusnethan Motherwell, parish of Dalziel Strathaven, parish of Avondale to name but a few. The main thing to remember is that the parishes, not towns/villages/cities/counties/regions, are the key to researching family history, because that is how the records were collected and organised. > He is listed as being from Miln of Brodie (Mill of Brodie). Near Dyke, > there is a > very old castle, Brodie Castle, that was owned and lived in > by the Brodie > family. After reading the actual records and the witnesses at the > baptisms and > marriages, Brodies being some of them, I now think that my > ancestor possibly > was the miller for the Brodies and he lived at the > mill. You are spot on. Mill (or Miln) of Brodie would be the mill at Brodie. Sometimes you see the name Milton/Milltown of .... This always means the mill attached to or closest to the place name which follows. > It is frustrating when one can not find an old list of placenames and the > records > are sometimes so hard to read that you can't figure out what the > place was. You also need to remember that spelling is not a constant, so sometimes using the spelling as in the original document does not produce the answer when searching modern maps. > An example Spynie was the manor where the bishops of Moray lived. Before the foundation of Elgin Cathedral in the early 13th century the seat of the diocese was variously in Spynie, Birnie and Kinneddar. Spynie Palace (a bit of a misnomer because it is in fact a considerable fortification) was the Bishop's residence. Lachlan Shaw's 'History of the Province of Moray' says, "The Church stood in the extremity [of the parish] to the east, and, anno 1736, was transplanted to, and built at, Quarrelwood, and called New-Spynie." Anne