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Original volumes in the Register of Corrected Entries, held in the Dome Room
All images courtesy of National Records of Scotland |
Last month I
wrote a post about identifying inaccuracies in records and mentioned Scottish records’ answer to Tipp-Ex, the Register of Corrected
Entries (RCE) – or as its entries are now known, the Register of Corrections
Etc (well done to the powers that be for
keeping the same initials there). After a
conversation with a friend last weekend about these, I thought I’d write a bit
more about this great record set.
An entry in
the RCE can be viewed only in conjunction with the record it is correcting: a post-1854
birth, marriage, or death certificate. There
is no dataset or searchable index to the RCE on its own.
On a
certificate, you will see a notation in the left-hand margin with a written reference,
or like the one in the image on the left here, also marked with an official stamp.
And if you’re
using the ScotlandsPeople system, either on your own device or in a record
office, you will see a red hyperlink at the top of the screen on which the
certificate appears, that takes you to the relevant RCE.
So what kind
of information are you likely to find in an RCE entry? And what do they look
like?
Well, here’s the entry related to the reference above.
You can see
that it gives information matching the certificate – a death, in this example –
such as the county and registration district, the name of the individual, and
the date of the event. When researching a death, the
most likely source of additional RCE detail will be in the “Cause of Death”
column. Here, the cause of death
is identical to that given on the original death certificate: “Natural Causes
with a virtual certainty of it having been a Coronary Thrombosis.” This matching of the two records is quite common, when no further
understanding of the cause of death has been developed.
On the other
hand, you may see (occasionally graphic) detail about the nature and
circumstances of an individual’s demise.
If for no other reason, this can be a good indicator of whether a
newspaper report may exist about an accidental or sudden death, which are the
usual reasons for a death certificate being linked to the RCE.
It may also
point to the possibility of a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI), another uniquely
Scottish aspect of the legal system.
Unlike the rest of the UK, there are no coroners in Scotland, and the
procurator fiscal, the Crown’s legal representative, is notified when a sudden
death occurs. FAIs are conducted, at the
instigation of the procurator fiscal, by a sheriff (and, before 1976, a jury),
and records of their proceedings are held by National Records of Scotland.
But what
about birth or marriage records and the RCE?
Births are most often corrected because of inaccuracies or omissions in
the name of a child, or in cases of paternity disputes. These can be very useful when a father’s name
is not given on the original birth certificate, historically in the case of a
birth outside marriage. An addition may be made to the RCE giving the father’s name. You will sometimes see, on a birth certificate, details in the column for the parents' names such as "Mother: Jean Brown, married to James Finlay, who she declares is not the father of the child". This is an example of the type of circumstance which has led to the creation of an entry in the RCE.
According to research guidance on the ScotlandsPeople website, there is usually only one situation in which a
correction will be made to a marriage record, and that is where the couple has
obtained a divorce. A stamp will have
been made in the margin indicating this and giving the RCE reference, and on
ScotlandsPeople the link will appear at the head of the page. This only applies to marriage records until
1984, after which the use of the RCE was replaced by the Statutory Register of
Divorces.
As my friend
found out recently, not every RCE reference noted on a certificate has had its entry digitised.
If you’re using the ScotlandsPeople system to view the certificate, you can contact
their help desk and request a scan be made of the RCE. In this instance, within a couple of days a
copy of the RCE record had been forwarded to my friend, providing her with extra information about the cause of a death.
Corrections
for any reason can be made to birth, marriage, or death certificates, including
mistakes in dates or spelling. Being aware of the RCE’s existence is the first
step to identifying entries when researching in Scottish certificates. Do be on the look out for them!
