John McIntyre (94DN-8K7)

Maile L

@JoanMcIntire asked in another group

Can someone help us find birth & marriage records for John McIntyre (94DN-8K7). All we have is the baptism record for his son William McIntyre (94DN-8V5). William has his baptism record listing his father John but not his mother. Trying to find information on the father John and the mother unkown.

Paul W

@JoanMcIntire When I first discovered that all the Scotland "OPRs" had been indexed I jumped to the mistaken conclusion that I would have little trouble in tracing my Scottish ancestry. Sadly, a combination of the registers being poorly maintained, together with the general practice of them having relatively few marriage records and next-to-none in the way of death / burial entries, has made my searches far more difficult than those for most of my ancestral lines relating to English families.

As McINTYRE (or variants thereof) is a relatively common name, I just checked out Stirlingshire records, on both FamilySearch and ScotlandsPeople websites. William's 1654 baptism / birth appears to be the only event that can be identified as relating to his branch for that period of time. Sadly, as you have found, not even a mother's name in the record - although usually the naming of the child's mother in 17th century Scottish birth records appears to be more common than in English parish registers for the same period.

Unfortunately, you may have come to the end of the road with your searches of this particular family line, but you have done far better than me in getting back as far as you have with your Scottish ancestors. Even up to the early half of the 19th century, marriages are often hard to find, as they often took place (legally) away from the church. This practice was frowned upon by the clergy, it seems, but not illegal in Scotland - thus making matters so difficult for modern-day researchers.