know the murderer but can't find the victim.....

[winger]

hi, I have found a murder thru the Nat. Archives where the trial was held in 1859. the murderer was James McNair and he murdered his brother William. I think both of these McNair's are one's I am looking for as the Nat. Archives gives the address of william as Castlebank Street, Partick. This would tie in with the info I have - however I have just gone on to SP to find the death cert for William thinking it would be there for 1859 - the trial was held on 28th Dec 1859 - but these is no death that matches!

what am I doing wrong?. I can't find James death either, but he could have gone abroad as he only got 9months for culpable homicid. but where is the death cert for William?. would it be listed as a normal cert if there was a trial?
hope someone can shed some light on this - I was so looking forward to updating my files with this one!

[DavidWW]

hi, I have found a murder thru the Nat. Archives where the trial was held in 1859. the murderer was James McNair and he murdered his brother William. I think both of these McNair's are one's I am looking for as the Nat. Archives gives the address of william as Castlebank Street, Partick. This would tie in with the info I have - however I have just gone on to SP to find the death cert for William thinking it would be there for 1859 - the trial was held on 28th Dec 1859 - but these is no death that matches!

what am I doing wrong?. I can't find James death either, but he could have gone abroad as he only got 9months for culpable homicid. but where is the death cert for William?. would it be listed as a normal cert if there was a trial?
hope someone can shed some light on this - I was so looking forward to updating my files with this one!

Hi Winger

Although the trial was held in 1859, there's no guarantee that the death occured in the same year, - have you tried 1858?, - altho' that would be unusual.

David

PS Later - it's there in 1859, in Partick, September 14th, but in the index the age is shown as "U", - the cause of death makes no difference to the process of registration.
dww

[Cathy]

I'd also try the year after.
I've found to my cost BMD occurring late December, would be registered in the January of the next year.

[DavidWW]

I'd also try the year after.
I've found to my cost BMD occurring late December, would be registered in the January of the next year.

Cathy

See previous post.

For a situation such as this to reach the stage of trial in the High Court (of Justiciary) would, at that era, require at least several weeks, and therefore unlikely in this case, with a trial date of 28th December, that the registration date of the victim would have slipped over into the next next year. (There's also an interesting point in there, - as to whether the trial could have proceeded unless there was a duly registered death )

A very good point, though, which, as you correctly point out, applies to Bs, Ms, and Ds , and often leads to confusion, as not everyone realises that the key date as far as the indexes are concerned is the date of registration, not the date of the event.

David

[Cathy]

Hi David,
I was also thinking if there was an RCE, due to inquest or investigations, that it would also be recorded later.

[DavidWW]

Hi Winger

It has only just occurred to me to ask if you have researched the material held on the trial at National Archives of Scotland, as West Register House, in Edinburgh.

I deliberately write "material" as the record of the trial itself is likely to be no more than 1 page with just the details of the panel (accused), the victim, the judge and jury, time and place, possibly the names of the witnesses, and the verdict, i.e. no record of the full details of the trial itself (for that you need to look at newspapers, where there can often be a virtually verbatim report of the trial).

What NAS may still hold are the "productions" associated with the trial, i.e. everything, including interviews of those involved, including witnesses, and everything associated with that, carried out by the Procurator Fiscal which might have been used in evidence.

I've done such research several times, including one case involving a namesake (purely coincidental ) where, only after the exhumation of his wife, was he charged with murder, and duly tried for murder.

There was a couple of boxes of "productions" at West Register House, including all sorts of witness statements, and a detailed layout of the hotel in Kirriemuir where the alleged murder took place.

The verdict was that Scottish peculiarity - "not proven", - which, in modern day terms means "we're fairly sure that you did it, but can't prove it, so go away and don't do it again" s

Going off on a sidetrack, the original verdicts in such a trial in Scotland were "proven" or "not proven", the logic being that guilt is a very difficult matter to prove or disprove, so that Scots law took the view that all that was possible was to prove or disprove the charge, hence the verdicts.

Sometime in the 1700s Scots Law was "brought into line" with the rest of the UK, with the verdicts being changed to "guilty" or "not guilty", except some parliamentary clerk neglected to expunge the "not proven" verdict, so that modern Scots law is verging on the unique with 3 possible verdicts for a criminal trial, - "guilty", "not guilty", or "not proven", - the latter being this fascinating hangover from earlier practice in Scotland, but now, in effect, an intermediate verdict between "guilty" and "not guilty", and now so well established as part of Scots law, that it is unlikely to be removed

In the case I refer to above, all the other, largely circumstantial evidence could only lead to the verdict of guilty, but largely because the amount of arsenic found in the exhumed body wasn't enough to cause death, the verdict was "Not Proven"

David

[DavidWW]

Hi David,
I was also thinking if there was an RCE, due to inquest or investigations, that it would also be recorded later.

Hi Cathy

Good point, but regardless of any such later investigation, the Scottish process was that the death had to be registered within 8 or 14 days depending on the place of the event, and regardless of any possible, later legal process.

In any case involving a violent death, or where there had been no regular medical attendant in the period up to the death, the Registrar was obliged by law to report the death to the Procurator Fiscal.

The Scottish process was that any amendment or addition of information after the registrar had signed the register entry could only be made via a linked entry in the Register of Corrected Entries (RCE).

What is most unusual in this case is that there is apparently no such RCE entry, despite the subsequent trial, - possibly because there was a clear certification of the cause of death in the register entry, so that the registrar didn't see the need for a reference to the Procurator Fiscal, that in the context where the police would already have initiated that process.

As far as the registrar was concerned, as long as he was happy that the cause of death had been correctly certified by a qualified medical practicioner, then he could argue that he had discharged his duties

In this case the entry in the relevant column in the register was .......

??ffusion on the Brain
the result of violence
5 days
As certified by James ???????????
MD
who saw the deceased
September 14th

....and there is no reference to an RCE in the lefthand column.

David

[winger]

thank u all for taking the time to reply - I was checking the records with williams DOB and looking for his death by his age! didn't occur to me that there would be no age on the records! thanks so much for checking.
the information on what to expect at Edinburgh was also useful - I don't live in the uk so I need to arrange a trip or a relative to go the Nat Archives and see what info they have, I wanted to verify that they were my mcnair's before I went to all that trouble - good news is they are!

once again - thanks for your assistance, now I just need to find out what happened to James the killer!

[DavidWW]

thank u all for taking the time to reply - I was checking the records with williams DOB and looking for his death by his age! didn't occur to me that there would be no age on the records! thanks so much for checking.
the information on what to expect at Edinburgh was also useful - I don't live in the uk so I need to arrange a trip or a relative to go the Nat Archives and see what info they have, I wanted to verify that they were my mcnair's before I went to all that trouble - good news is they are!

once again - thanks for your assistance, now I just need to find out what happened to James the killer!

The age is on the register entry, but in that year it wasn't extracted into the index.........

David