Many years ago, I heard an excellent tip on the Genealogy Gems podcast by Lisa Louise Cooke. She recommended placing an eBay alert for names that you are researching, such as family surnames or locations. You never know what might turn up.
My list included the place name Botriphnie, a little parish in Banffshire, Scotland, birthplace of my ancestor William CRUCKSHANK. He was born there ~1746 and had moved to Enmore, Somerset, England by 1772 when he married Elizabeth (known as Betty) COLLARD. In Somerset he was the Steward for Lord Egmont. I've blogged about him before here. Botriphnie is the former name for the parish around the village of Drummuir, which in 1755 had a population of around 953 people, declining to almost 600 by 1780s, mainly due to changes in local farming (source: the fascinating St Moluag's Coracle).
FamilySearch describes the official and dominant religion at the time William was baptised as being the Established Church of Scotland, although there were also a handful of dissenters, Seceders, or Roman Catholics living in the area. So chances are, my William was part of this church community.
A few years ago eBay emailed me when an item came up for auction that was from Botriphnie - a communion token. I had never heard of these before but Wikipedia told me that it "is a metal token issued to members of Reformed churches in order to provide them entrance to the Lord's Supper" and that Communion tokens were also used in Scottish Episcopal churches. This one started at £1 but ended up being sold for over AUD$360, which was out of my budget. I left the alert in place, just ticking away in the background. And then another token appeared last month. This time I was the lucky buyer, spending just £13.50!
My token is dated 1782, so it is particularly exciting to think that it was made in the very place where William was born, probably during his lifetime. It is a tiny thing – only about 18 x 14 mm – but it has opened up a whole new area of research for me. I can now start learning about the church community William may have belonged to, and what these little tokens actually meant to the people who received them.
I can highly recommend Lisa's technique. You never know what you might find, and what you'll learn about these random items along the way.
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| Is this the front or the back? I have no idea. I love how the 'N' is retrograde. |
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| Is this the back or the front? Again, no idea. It reads 1782 and has two floral ornaments stamped onto it. |
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| It's not terribly thick |
