A Session with Scottish Kirk Sessions

Kirk Session Records 
What are they and what information do they contain?

In March 2021, a valuable set of records was made newly available to search online by the National Records of Scotland, (NRS), through the Virtual Volumes section of the Scotland’s People website.  They are referred to collectively as the ‘Kirk Sessions’ but more correctly form part of the ‘Records of Church of Scotland synods, presbyteries and kirk sessions’ found under reference CH2/ in the catalogues of the NRS and other local archives.  The CH2 series extends to some 25,000 volumes and 5 million pages of information, of which it is thought ‘a million pages from 6,000 volumes’ are now available online. 

'The Ordination of Elders in a Scottish Kirk' by John Henry Lorimer. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What are Kirk Sessions?

​A kirk session is the lowest court in the Church of Scotland, comprising the minister and elders of an individual parish or congregation. In the course of kirk session business, these courts—and in particular the elder appointed to the office of session clerk—produced records documenting their meetings, decisions and transactions.[1]

​Historically the church courts formed a four-tier hierarchy; the Kirk Session at congregation or parish level,  grouped into local areas or Presbyteries which in term formed part of a regional Synod (abolished in the 1990s).  The most senior Church Court of all is the General Assembly.  Dating from the Scottish Reformation in 1560, when the Protestant Church broke from Rome, the Church of Scotland was at the heart of Scottish parish life until the late 19th century.  The Church was not only responsible for the pastoral and moral wellbeing of its parishioners but also for certain aspects of civil administration too.  As such, the Kirk Sessions and associated records form an immensely important source of historical information for historians as well as genealogists.  

​The records associated with the Kirk Session and its business have been made available through a section of Scotland’s People website called Virtual Volumes which also contains a comprehensive guide on how to use the site and search for records effectively.

In Virtual Volumes you can view digital copies of historical records in the care of National Records of Scotland that are not indexed by personal name. Records currently available are mainly those of kirk sessions and other church courts.[2]

​Whilst the images have been digitised and are free to view, it is not possible to search by name or keyword, so it requires a bit more time to physically read through the pages.  Should you wish to download an image, the cost is only 2 credits, or .50p.  

Initially I thought it would be fun to compile an A-Z of all the types of information the records contain, but the notion was quickly dismissed as there is enough material to fill a book, and a large one at that, let alone a blog!  Instead, this month's offering is designed to act as a signpost with a few examples of information the records may contain that I myself have encountered along the way.  (It should be noted that Kirk Sessions were not limited to the Established Church of Scotland but were also held by the various other Presbyterian Secession Churches, although with a limited civil administrative function.)

What Information do Kirk Session Records Contain?

As the records of baptisms, marriages and burials in many parishes are interspersed amongst other parish business recorded in the Session Minutes, many of you will have already made a foray into the Kirk Session records very possibly without being aware you have done so.  One particular Border parish that immediately springs to mind is Gordon, where this is the case for periods of the seventeenth century.  Ironically a century later in the Statistical Account of 1793, the same parish also received a slating for the standard of record keeping in its parish registers .[3]

Extract from The First Statistical Accounts, Parish of Gordon, Berwickshire, Old Statistical Accounts, Vol. V, 1793

​Like the parish registers themselves, the material and level of detail that can be found in the Kirk Session records varies from parish to parish.  Nor are the records complete, there are inevitably some parishes where little, or no information has survived at all.  Where they have survived, however, the records of the Kirk Sessions can be a veritable goldmine of information. 

The Session Minutes, which are a record of the session as a church court, form the greater part of the archives which have been made available online.  As the church was responsible for the moral well-being of its congregation, it is here that rebukes and fines for Irregular Marriages, although perfectly legal, may commonly be found.  For example, this record for the marriage of John Lamb and Helen Cockburn in January 1818 does not appear in the parish registers nor in ‘Vol II of the Irregular Marriages … 1808 – 1864’.

Reproduced courtesy of the National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, Scotland kirk session, Minutes (1817 – 1873), CH2/334/7, 1818, p.3

Alongside these, numerous inquiries into illegitimacy and children born in ‘uncleanness’ or through pre-marital 'relations' can also be found together with associated rebukes and ‘punishments’ for the offenders.   Here is the same couple receiving a slap on the wrist after the baptism of the first child Isabel on 26th July 1818, born on the 30th June.  Clearly the Minister and Elders could count!

Reproduced courtesy of the National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, Scotland kirk session, Minutes (1817 – 1873), CH2/334/7, 1818, p.4

​In another record relating to illegitimacy, the details of where the ‘unclean’ act, or 'crime', took place may seem unnecessarily precise, but in fact it was this very detail that would determine which parish would have jurisdiction over the case.  Any subsequent financial assistance the mother and child may have required would have been the liability of her place of settlement. 

Reproduced courtesy of the National Records of Scotland: Scotland's People, Sprouston kirk session, Minutes (1817-1873), Accounts (1816-1857), CH2/334/7

Nor was it just women who bore the brunt of the Church’s displeasure.  In 1657 John Waite was summoned to appear before the Session and having been found guilty of getting to know Helen Storie rather too well, was sentenced to be ‘pilloried’ the following sabbath to be publicly ridiculed by his peers.​

Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: 28 December 1657, Scotland’s People, OPR Births, Gordon [Kirk Session Minutes] 742/10/42.

​December 28 Colected 11s 10d given to Patricke Johstonne
Compeared John Waite & Confest his sinne of fornicacion with hellen
storie, appoint[is] him to enter the piller the next sabboth

Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: 28 December 1657, Scotland’s People, OPR Births, Gordon [Kirk Session Minutes] 742/10/42.

​Januarie 4th Colecit 13s geven to Henry Fairbairne
John Waite entered the piller.  apoynt[is] to sow[mon]d Culdbert Bradie

Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: 28 December 1657, Scotland’s People, OPR Births, Gordon [Kirk Session Minutes] 742/10/42.

Feburarie 1:  Colected 16s 4d put into the boxe  John waite
​receaved from the piller haveing obeyed the order of the Church

​Some of the examples I have used, such as the above, have been taken from the ‘registers’ prior to the Virtual Volumes coming online, but are nonetheless records of the Kirk Session. It is not uncommon to find Session business and vital records appearing in chronological order in the same book.  Others have been taken from the Parish of Sprouston, during or just after the Ministry of Ninian Trotter (a 3rd great granduncle) which ran from 1809 until his death during the cholera epidemic in 1832. (Minutes were noted to be absent for period 1830 – 1833.)

​Other ‘offences’ which were frequently brought before the Kirk Session were, ‘dirty’ dancing, drunkenness, blood affrays, slander, non-observance of days of fast days, and as was the case of this party of people below, failure to observe the Sabbath.

​November 30th …
Compeered Alex[ande]r grieve and Elsepth ormsonne Alison purvis Isable
bird and Christian Richison and did acknowledge their breach of sabboth
& professed sorrow  Session appoints them to Compear the next saboth before
the Congregacion and th[e]r[e] to acknowledge th[ei]r faith.
December 3 Coleced 14s put into the boxe This day Alex[ande]r greave
and Elspeth Ormston Alison purves Issoble birde and Christian Richison Comper
ed before the Congregacion and did acknowledge their breach of Sabbath[4]

​Other records created by the administration overseen by the Kirk Session can help to place people on specific dates and track their movements from parish to parish. ‘Certificates of Transference’ issued from a previous parish of residence granted admittance to the congregation of a new abode and can be particularly helpful in rural areas where a great many folk regularly moved for employment.  Whilst few actual certificates survive, references to them having been received and the subsequent list of names of folk moving into a parish can provide vital evidence of a family’s movements. Sprouston Parish has a good run of transference lists between 1812-1845 and 1836-1876 providing useful source of pre and inter-census information.

Certificates Received 1815/16. Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, Sprouston kirk session, Certificates of transference (1812 – 1845) CH2/334/13.

​Whilst the reference to certificates issued by Sprouston in 1815/16 may not give the onward destination, the certificates received state the parish from whence they came, thus providing hints as to where to look for other information.  The records sometimes also helpfully give an indication as to marital state.

Certificates Granted 1816. Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, Sprouston kirk session, Certificates of transference (1812 – 1845) CH2/334/13.

​Other documents that may be found within the Session records include Heads of Households which list the male heads of households who had taken communion, and the Young Communicants Rolls give the date that young people received communion for the first time.  These can be useful resources to help pinpoint people in the period before the introduction of the census and where death and burial records are scant to prove potential relatives, or their offspring were still living.  This extract from list of young communicants shows sisters Agnes and Marion Trotter two of the daughters of James Trotter and his cousin Margaret Trotter of Abercorn, Linlithgow, and nieces of the Rev Ninian Trotter, receiving their first communion in July 1835.[1]  (Agnes, who was the only child of six to marry, would later be wife to George Cargey.)

Young Communicants at Sprouston 1835. Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, Sprouston kirk session, Communion Rolls (1835 – 1844) CH2/334/13.

​The Church was also responsible for the administration, collection and distribution of poor relief.  The extract below, which is again taken from the Gordon combined parish/session records, sheds some light on the incapacity of Isabel Hope and her father to support themselves in 1709.     

The session considering the distrest circumstances of Isoble
Hope daughter to James Hope in West Gordon in regard she
is keept bedfast through the desease of an universale Cruell
and that the said James her father is so far from being able
to keep her being a very old infirm man that he rather
needs supply himself appoints that two sabbath days collections
be put in to the box and the third shall be given to her and
because of her present need she is to get the Collection
Sabath nixt for her first.  Given to the bedall for his house
maile [house rent] five lbs Scots.  To James Darie one pound Scots
To a poor Stranger two shillings Scots.  The Sed[erun]t closed w[i]t[h] prayer.[5]

​This record also touches on the expenses of parish officials also borne by the Church, with £5 Scots paid to the Beadle, (who as an assistant to the Minister may also have been gravedigger and bell ringer) towards the rent of his house.  Although more commonly found with the accounts, the Church also often ran the school and employed the schoolmaster.  Amongst the other oddities found in the accounts are rental incomes from family seats or pews, church maintenance costs and expenditure on mort cloths etc.  A more unusual record relates to the ‘Stent’ which was an assessment or valuation based on land holding to calculate liability towards contributions to the poor relief fund.  These are nonetheless useful in assessing an ancestor’s status within a community.[6]  Below is an extract taken from the Stent Roll for Gordon in 1692/3 which is headed:

Extract from Stent Roll 1692/93 Gordon. Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, Gordon kirk session, Minutes (1682-1708) CH2/457/1.

​… List of Tennents greater and lesser
And of cottars greater and Lesser w[i]t[h]in the
paroch of Gordon stented for the meatinance
of the poor in the paroch as follows for the
quarter betwixt hallowmis 92 to Candlemas 93
[1st November to 2nd February]

The Session minutes also sometimes documented ‘extraordinary’ events such as war, or acted as a social and  economic commentators by recording the weather and notes on the harvest.  Thinking in terms of an A-Z once more another 'crime' beginning with ‘w’ to come before the session was the accusation of Witchcraft, such as this from the Gordon Minutes of 1660.  In this case the accusation was clearly found wanting and the accuser, William Steill, found himself punished and fined instead.

Accusation of Witchcraft, 1660, Gordon. Reproduced courtesy of National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s People, 1660, Gordon kirk session, Minutes (transcription) (1652-1718), CH2/457/9.

​There are many, many more examples of historical gems that grace the pages of Session Minutes and other associated records, not least the election or deposing of the Church Elders themselves.  The best way to get a feel for the type of information the records contain is to select a parish for which a good selection of documents have survived, choose a period and just dive in!  

Citations & Links

[1] Scotland’s People, Record Guides, Kirk Session Records,
​ https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/record-guides/kirk-session-records#Introduction
[2] Scotland's People, Virtual Volumes ​
https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/using-virtual-volumeswww.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/using-virtual-volumes
[3] The First Statistical Accounts, Parish of Gordon, Berwickshire, Old Statistical Accounts, Vol. V, 1793  https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/osa-vol5-Parish_record_for_Gordon_in_the_county_of_Berwick_in_volume_5_of_account_1/
[4] 30 November 1657, Scotland’s People, OPR Births, Gordon [Kirk Session Minutes] 742/10/42.
[5] 17 February 1709, Scotland’s People, (OPR Births, 744/20/82 Gordon); Sederunt
As a vernacular noun: The members, collectively, present at a particular sitting of a court, or the sitting of a court. Dictionary of Scots Language, https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/sederunt
[6] Stent - An assessment of the annual value of property, esp. land, as a basis for calculating liability for taxation; hence the amount so fixed, a tax or the money paid in taxes. DSL
​ https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/stent_n_1,2. ​