Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Wee Stamper Murdoch: News from Irvine, Episode 4

Billy Kerr from Irvine has sent me another example of the Ulster-Scottish interactions, this time from the Kirk Session minutes of Irvine (Old) Parish Church from 7 December 1760:

"...Helen Murdoch compeired and acknowledged she had brought forth a child in fornication. Being interrogate who was the Father, said, that George Downie Stamper was the Father of it, who commonly resides at Belfast but has taken a house in this Town, being asked if she had told him of her being with child, said she had, and that he had acknowledged it to John Young and James Alexander sailors..."

When historical stories obsess upon the "great and good", the story of the ordinary people is missed - people who struggled with the same issues and events as folk still do today. I wonder how wee Stamper Murdoch turned out in later life?

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