Need help deciphering a mystery word in a Scottish OPR baptism, please.

Barry Howard

Hi,

I need help deciphering a word in a Scottish OPR baptism record. The baptism took place in January 1603 in Dunfermline, in Fifeshire, and the text of the entry reads -

"That day James Buist ……? hade ane womanchylde born to him of his wyff Jonett Dannyell baptised and callit Jonett".

I cannot read the word following the father's surname "Buist". After studying the handwriting on the entire page I believe the word starts with "h" but may also be a capital "C" and looks like it contains a lower case "t". The word is important to me because it may be the father's occupation or the parent's place of residence. Can anyone help me read the word please?

The record entry in question consists of three lines and is marked by a red arrow in the attached image.

Adrian Bruce1

Is it not just "baptise" or "baptised"? That makes no sense to me but it does look close to the later occurrence of "baptised".

Ruth H_1

@Barry Howard Compare the unknown word with the neighbouring word you have determined is Buist. The ‘b’ and the ‘st’ are very similar. I agree with @Adrian Bruce1 that the word has some similarities with instances of the word baptised, but I see a subtle difference between the p and the x. I think it’s Baxster, whether that is a surname or an occupation (baxter means baker) I don’t know. If you can penetrate the very difficult read for some of the other records and determine that an occupation is usually included with a baptism entry, you may have a clue.

Adrian Bruce1

@Barry Howard Yes, I believe that @Ruth H_1 has a better reading of it than me - I'd agree that Baxter is a sensible interpretation

shecorwe

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