Michelle wrote: > I'm looking for Kate-Maitland (Milly) Hunter. She and her > brothers were sent to Aberlour orphanage in 1882/3 when their parents > died. She is mentioned in the 1881 census with her mother and family > in Edinburgh then I have a record of her entering the orphanage as > Catherine. She became a bond servant to someone while in her > early teens and died at age 14 according to family lore. I've seen no > death record for her and the orphanage has no more records for that > early. As an orphan, she would have become the resposibility of the Poor law Board for the parish where she lived (or possibly for the parish where she was born, if that was different). Orphans could be boarded-out in the community, or sent to the Poor House, but the Poor Law Board for the appropriate parish retained overall responsibilty for their welfare, and will have kept records. There are three different places among the Poor Law records where information on Kate/Milly/Catherine would have been noted: (1) The "Record of Applications", which records all claims on the Poor Law, whether or not the claim was eventually allowed. (2) The "General Register of the Poor", which records (for successful applicants) how they were initially disposed of, and any changes to their allowances or other circumstances, until such time as they either died or were judged to be no longer in need of support. (3) The "Childrens' Separate Register" in which additional information was kept on under-age recipients. (4) The 'Minutes' of the Poor Law Board. These are very variable, and sometimes say little more than that the Board approved the accounts submitted by the Inspector of the Poor (the official who, in each parish, administered the Poor Law), but some Boards were more 'hands-on' and the Minutes will include discussion of individual named cases. Not all of these records have survived for all parishes, but all entries in (1) and (2) have been indexed by name for each parish by volunteers from Aberdeen and Northeast Scotland FHS (I did Banffshire!), and copies of this Index are held both by ANESFHS (www.anesfhs.org.uk) and by Aberdeen City Archives, who hold the original Registers. You don't say what parish Kate/Milly/Catherine came from. This is fairly important, as that will tell us where to look for her in the Poor Law records. If she happened to be from Aberlour, then only item (1) has survived for the relevant time-span, but there are more complete records (or, unfortunately, no records at all) for some other parishes. Gavin Bell