Almost on a whim, I checked out the ScotlandsPeople data to see if there was anything new for the Campbell family and was delighted to find that Ann’s baptism record had been added to their digital collection about three months ago.
We have always known that Ann, my 3x-great-grandmother, was born September 18, 1828 in Glasgow, Scotland but I never had any proof of that. She was not listed as baptized in any of the parish registers for the Church of Scotland. However, ScotlandsPeople recently added some “Nonconformist” church records to their site. “Nonconformist” is a catch-all term referring to any church that wasn’t part of the Church of Scotland.
I found out that Ann was indeed born on September 18, 1828 in Glasgow and her baptism was recorded in the records of the “John Street Relief Church”. At first I thought this meant some sort of charity organization, but in fact the “Relief Church” was a Protestant denomination that started in Scotland in 1761. It later became absorbed in the Presbyterian Church.
The minister who performed the baptism was William Anderson. Although maybe a little bit eccentric, it sounds like his heart was in the right place. He was a notable personality in Glasgow’s history and made a difference in the lives of many people.
This has renewed my curiosity about why the Campbell family left Crieff and went to Glasgow, and why they left Glasgow to go to America. I’ll have to dig around and see what else I can find about their time in Glasgow.
More mysteries to solve!
Source of information:
From ScotlandsPeople: 1828 CAMPBELL, ANN (Other Church Registers Baptisms CH3/806/12 13 GLASGOW- JOHN STREET RELIEF)
That’s very interesting about Ann. My 2nd great grandmother is her sister Jennette. Do the records you found have anything about her?