While The Spalding Club did a great job of bringing historical material to the fore, to be read by many more people than had access to the original manuscript, their indexing left a lot to be desired. Probably because most members of the Spalding Club (who all got copies of the publications) were upper class, the indexing tended to reflect this and avoided including the working class members of the community, on the reasonable assumption that the readers were unlikely to be interested in the appearances of such folk.

This is why I decided that it was worth re-indexing the book.  Indexing decisions were such: Smith, John will have a different entry from Smith, John, of Boggietoun, and from Smith, John, elder of Grange parish, and so on. Each will have all the page numbers where that person of that designation is to be found. Some page references might be nothing more than reporting the absence of that person, but often with reasons, which can be useful.

I have noted the variable spelling of names within the book - I observed Kinninmont spelled at least 5 ways - and reflect this in the index.  I have mostly converted placenames to the modern usage (Keith is often written as Keyth, for example).

Although I have a number of books which are candidates for indexing, or re-indexing, I have selected for my next index: "The Ecclesiastical Annals of Perth, to the period of the Reformation" by Robert Scott Fittis, pub. 1885.