⊆ Moving Around ⊇
Here we give a description of what each item in the Main Menu on the top bar does. These descriptions are given here in the order in which they appear, starting with the third item.
General Index
Clicking “General Index” opens a page which describes the scope of the General Index of Scottish Presbyterian ministers. It tells the various church records that have been brought together to make up this comprehensive Index and the time periods to which these records refer.
Letting your cursor rest on “General Index” leads to a drop-down menu giving three options as to how you can search the Index.
The best one to choose is the first one: “Index Fasti etc.” This leads to an alphabetic index of all the ministers in the Index listed alphabetically by surname. It therefore includes ministers of all the Presbyterian Churches in Scotland.
The other options: “Searching by Presbytery” and “Searching by congregation” are very limited in scope: they only refer to Presbyteries and Congregations of the Church of Scotland from 1560 to 1929, that is, those contained in the Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae, Volumes 1-7.
Trees
The next item on the menu bar is “Trees”. This web-site is for family historians as well as church historians; some emphasis is therefore given to family connections.
So many Free Church ministers had extensive ministerial connections that it became unwieldy to mention all these in the Supplementary Information provided. Therefore a number of outline trees of those who have multiple ministerial connections have been prepared. There are at present 39 trees – some quite limited; others more extensive. Clicking “Trees” brings you to a page which gives guidance as to what is contained in these Trees,
Resting your cursor on “Trees” leads to a drop-down menu which gives you three options.
“Introduction” gives you a general picture of the purpose of these trees; how they are arranged; and the best way to access the information contained in them. You are advised to read this introduction before referring to the trees themselves.
“Index of Trees” takes you to an alphabetical list of the 39 trees which are available here.
“Index of Free Church Ministers” leads to an alphabetical list of all Free Church ministers whose names appear in these trees.
Free Church
The next item in the menu bar is “Free Church”. Clicking this item leads to a page that lists the six main items available in this section and gives a short description of each item. Resting your cursor on “Free Church” produces a drop-down menu giving you these six options as follow.
Ewing’s Annals
Clicking “Ewing’s Annals” will take you to a page describing what is in this section.
List of Congregations: Ewing’s Volume 2 provided a brief account of the origin and progress of Free Church congregations. Clicking List of Congregationswill take you to that material. There are options to search by Presbytery or by congregation.
List of Ministers: In Volume 1, Ewing also provided a list of Professors with a brief account of their lives and, separately, a similar list of other ministers. Here these two lists are merged into one alphabetical sequence. It is here too that the supplementary information which we have gathered is provided. Clicking “List of Ministers” will take you to all that material arranged alphabetically by surname.
Supplementary Information: This is an explanation about the Supplementary information supplied alongside Ewing’s information in the List of Ministers. It explains the limits of the research conducted, the sources used, the way in which the information is laid out, etc. It is strongly recommended that anyone intending to use the Supplementary Information should first read this section. Clicking “Supplementary Information” will take you to this material.
Obituaries: Obituaries of Free Church Ministers, drawn from the Free Church Monthly publication, are available by clicking this item. Alternatively, you can look for a minister via the Ministers’ List, and you will then find a link to his Obituary if there is one.
It also contains the foreword to these Annals.
Resting your cursor on “Ewing’s Annals produces a drop-down menu with these five options as follow.
Brown’s Annals:
Thomas Brown’s Annals of the Disruption tells the story, from a Free Church perspective, of the formation and development of the Free Church. Although written in 1892, it contains a good number of reminiscences of those involved in the Disruption itself.
Clicking “Brown’s Annals ” will take you to a short explanation of how this book is being presented here, together with a list of Contents, which will enable you to get to the text of Brown’s Annals itself.
Biographies:
This section contains short biographies of people – mainly ministers – prominent in the movement that culminated in the Disruption, collected from various sources. Clicking “Biographies” will bring you to a page which tells more about this collection and which provides links to these biographies. Alternatively, resting your cursor on “Biographies” produces a drop-down menu with similar links.
Image Gallery: Some of the above mentioned Biographies have portraits attached to them. Clicking “Image Gallery” will take you to some of these portraits.
Obituaries post-1900: Clicking this item will lead you to a page which explains about this material and which gives an alphabetical list of ministers, connected with the Free Church after 1900, whose obituaries are available here.
Some Congregational Histories: Clicking this item brings you to an explanation of this section: namely that Ewing’s account of congregational history is really very poor. A few brief accounts of congregations – all operating in the post-1900 Free Church, though most of them in existence prior to the Union of 1900 – have been gathered together. This goes some small way to making up that deficiency. Resting your cursor on “Some Congregational Histories” produces a drop-down menu which gives access to an alphabetical list of the congregations dealt with.
OS Churches (Original Secession Churches)
Clicking this item brings you to an explanation of this section: it tells of the churches which traced their origin to the original secession of 1733 and which saw themselves as holding on to that original testimony. It also lists and describes the various documents that are contained in this section. Resting your cursor on “OS Churches” produces a drop-down menu which gives a choice of 8 options, as described in the introductory page.United Free
The United Free Church of Scotland was formed in 1900 through the union of the United Presbyterian Church and the majority of the Free Church. The majority of the United Free Church merged with the Church of Scotland in 1929. This section provides access to John A. Lamb’s Fasti of the United Free Church of Scotland, 1900-1929. Clicking this heading (or resting your cursor on it) will give access to four options dealing with different aspects of the book.
Articles
Here there are a number of one-off articles related loosely or more directly to Scottish Presbyterian History. Clicking this heading will given you a list of the articles currently available. Resting your cursor on the heading will provide a drop-down menu from which you can chose the article of interest to you.
Blog
The first post – Why a Blog? – explains the purpose of creating a blog page. No detailed explanation is needed of what a blog means! Comments are allowed there. Clicking Blog will take you to the blog page.
Contact
This is not designed as an inter-active site nor as a public discussion forum. However we are not averse to:
dealing with questions on relevant “ecclegen” matters;
being given notice of typos or links which don’t function or factual errors in the supplementary information;
receiving well documented additional information which might help towards the completion of this task.
Clicking Contact gives guidance as to how to send me an e-mail. It also provides a list of some links to other web-sites, brought together for convenience in one place. So we have a link to the Free Church of Scotland; to sites genealogical and biographical; and to technical sites used in setting up this web-site.
Navigation Hints
The menus on the top bar – as described above – enable you to get from one main item to another at all times.
When these link you to other pages in this web-site, or with other web-sites, the new page is opened up instead of the one you have been working on. To get back to your previous page, use the left arrow at the top left of your screen. To get the link to open as well as the page you are on, right click it and open the link using a new tab.
All ministers are listed in the General Index and you can find the one you are interested in via that Menu item. Alternatively if you are sure of the denomination of the minister, you can look under the appropriate Menu item: Free Church, OS Churches or United Free. Church of Scotland ministers can only be accessed through the General Index Menu item.