The latest Genealogical Index to appear in Kinhelp's "Genealogical Indices" section is unusual in a number of ways. It is an index to Part One of a published work, with an index to Part Two to appear at a later date.

Secondly, this index was compiled after consultation with the secretary of the Scottish Record Society, which published the work in the 1960s. Lastly, the index covers one of the earliest records of a small burgh in Scotland.

It indexes the Burgh Court Book of Selkirk, and starts in the year 1503. The material was transcribed from the handwritten original by local experts, so we can be certain of the high quality of their reading of the text. It appeared as Part One, 1503-1531, in 1960, with Part Two, 1531-1545, published in 1969. Part three was to include indexes, but never appeared, so I decided to work on it.

It is an unusual style of index, for I have made separate entries for each spelling of forenames, due to the huge range of usage in the text. Names can appear in Latin forms, pet forms, and in a variety of spellings, even within one page. This can be of interest to those researching the development of forenames, and thus this decision. Being before the period of the Reformation, it illustrates the links between the local Catholic clergymen, notaries (who were clergymen themselves), and the burgh council. The court book includes several lists of heads of families in the burgh, some for taxation, others for military purposes.