Writing assistance

The instructions for indexing asked for even more than that: "married women and widows are indexed under all the maiden names and surnames with which, on the face of the entries, they may have been identified". That could, in theory, be all of her husbands' names, her father's name, and if not legitimate her mother's name, her putative father's name, and any subsequent husbands' names of her mother!

But I've never seen an actual index, and I don't think images of them are available. Only one bound copy of each volume was made, to be kept in Register House. Obviously it was a true index - for finding registration records with - and not intended to be normative.

 

One thing that puzzles me about Mary Peat's entry is the use of "spouse of" when her husband is believed to have died. I would expect one of these two ways of naming a widow's ex-husband, both of which occur in that two-page image:
entry 16: Violet Fairgrieve, Relict of the late Thomas Barrowman
entry 24: Sarah Anderson, Widow of ______ Wood.

Relict is an old lawyer's term, and its use I suspect is a marker of social class. Mr Wood's missing name is a reminder that these records can only contain what the cemetery staff were told. James Forbes having died might not have been communicated, or whoever made the entries may not have been as formal and consistent as later registrars. (He was certainly better than earlier parish clerks!) But is does suggest James might, in fact, have been still living.

 

I have to say, a Scottish woman keeping her married name is extremely useful and makes it much easier to track them. That record you discovered probably is her husband James. Shame it doesn't have the same wealth of information.

Sixty is much more likely than 40. I have her birth date as approximately 1785. Still looking for a marriage and older children.

The reason I'm fairly sure that James is deceased is that Mary is on the 1841 census as "widow Forbes" in St John's Hill with what I think is her three youngest children -Frederick, Henry and Euphemia.

 

I used these indexes in New Register House when I started researching my Scottish grandmother's family 35 years ago while we were living in Edinburgh. You need strong arms for using them as they are weighty tomes.