The Burgh Court Book of Selkirk is one of the earliest surviving records of burgh life in Scotland, and is replete with names of individuals. These people were either leading members of the community, litigants or the accused (usually in land and property claims), or were being appointed as burgesses, clerk of the burgh or servants/officers of the burgh.

In quite a few cases relationships are mentioned, in particular where a person is officially declared heir of someone else, and in such cases their family relationship is stated. Other instances show who is married to whom - extremely helpful where no normal marriage records survive from the period.

In addition, there lists of names in the form of tax lists or lists of persons to act as militia in defense of the burgh.  The court book also sometimes states the occupation of a person, usually where there are two people with the same name, but another differentiation can be by place of residence. All these variations appear within the alphabetical name index. Each name variant is shown separately.

As usual, if you do not have access to a copy of the 1969 publication, I can provide either photocopies or scans of the relevant pages (cite the index, name(s) and pages) at a small fee plus postage where relevant, minimum 5 G.B. pounds , payable in advance (I can quote the amount once I count the pages and work out postage, etc., but scanning and sending by e-mail will normally allow for more copies to be done.

NOTE: The court book went up to 1545, but the years between 1541 and 1545 were never published, and so cannot be indexed at present.