Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database

Pointers for understanding your search results

This results report tells you what the documents say about an accused witch's biographical and personal information, including details about their family. The total list of possible categories is Name, Sex, Age, Residence fields, Marital Status, Socio-economic Status, Occupation. Information categories appear on your search report only if we found solid evidence concerning that category of information. For example, if we know the accused witch was married, then 'Marital Status' will appear on the search results. If however, we do not know the marital status of the accused, the report will say nothing about marital status.

Except for socio-economic status these fields should be self-explanatory. To view a list and definitions of our categories of socio-economic status, go to Socio-economic Status Categories. We took many factors into consideration when assigning the socio-economic status - their occupation (or that of their spouse); descriptions of ownership, wealth or status in the documents; references to titles, land ownership or patronage relationships; or descriptions and labels provided by contemporaries.

Please refer to the Glossary if you do not understand anything in your report.

For more information

To get more information about this accused witch click on the links under 'Cases involving the accused'. This will link you to detailed information about what the accused witch was accused of doing (where known); detailed trial information (where known); and information about the people who investigated, pursued and prosecuted the accused witch.