Researching Scottish Ancestors

Getting Started

If you were thousands of miles away from Scotland it used to be very difficult to research your Scottish family tree. But, thanks to the Internet, it has became dramatically easier with the Scottish Records Office providing their database of 20 million records on-line. But that is not the whole story so here are some words of advice on how to go about finding your Scottish roots.

First of all, get as many details as possible from other members of the family - especially the older generation! Getting copies of birth, marriage or death certificates can be extremely helpful but even recollections of names and places can put some of the jig-saw into place.

New Register House

The important thing to remember is that all useful records have been centralised in General Register Office of Scotland in Edinburgh. (In England lots of the records are still in county records offices, making life a lot more difficult for genealogists!). New Register House holds all the "hatches, matches and despatches" for the whole of Scotland.

The births, marriages and deaths are on a computerised database and copies of all the church parish records have been microfilmed and are available for research. From 6 April 1998 (yes, Tartan Day and the anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath a fully searchable index of Scottish birth and marriage records from 1553 to 1900, and death records from 1855 to 1900 was made available on the Web at Scottish Origins. 'Recent' records of 100 years and under are not being included as some people might be uneasy about the idea that anyone could search among such index entries - many of which of course relate to living persons. Scottish Origins make a modest charge for the service. The information on the births and marriages prior to 1855 is based on the "Old Parish Records" (OPR) as is the "International Genealogical Index" or IGI (see below).

If you get the opportunity to visit Edinburgh and New Register House you can access all these records if you obtain a "day ticket". Don't worry if you don't know where to start or how to use the records and the local PC database - the staff there are extremely helpful. But do remember that New Register House gets VERY busy in summer and space is limited - on a first come, first served basis.

International Genealogical Index

The "International Genealogical Index" or IGI is produced on microfiche by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons, but often referred to in genealogy pages as "LDS"). That lists all the births and marriages, by Scottish county and has been created from all the available old parish records so entries go back to the 16th century (though with lots of gaps, depending on the records surviving - and how good the minister of the day was at keeping the records up to date!) This is available at the Family History Centres in the USA and main libraries in Scotland. The information is also available (with similar birth/marriage information for USA and a number of other countries) at their Database Web site.

Other Major Sources of Scottish Genealogy Information

GENUKI: Scotland is part of the UK and Ireland Genealogy project, and there is a vast amount of information including an extensive description of (non-Web) genealogical archives and bibliography of publications on Scottish family history, plus libraries, cemeteries, census information, gazetteers, maps, newspapers etc. Each of the Scottish counties (as structured before the 1975 local government reorganisation destroyed centuries of the traditional counties) is looked after by an expert in that area; the information held is therefore not identical but reflects what is available in a given area.

The Scotland "GenWeb" Project provides help for genealogical researchers investigating Scotland to find local resource and reference information. The Scotland GenWeb is a part of the UKGenWeb Project. As with GENUKI: Scotland (above) each of the former Scottish counties (prior to restructuring in 1975) is allocated to an expert in that county.

I would suggest trying to get a copy of a book on genealogy research. Try some of the on-line book stores if you cannot get one locally. "Tracing your Scottish Ancestors" by Cecil Sinclair or "Scottish Roots" by Alwyn James are both good.

You can find more explanations on researching your family tree from various Web sites. However, I would particularly recommend:

• The Scottish Genealogy Links on this site for more useful Web pages.
• The famous Helm's Toolbox has over 70,000 genealogical links (probably more by now!).
• Cyndi's List of Genealogical Sites on the Internet has 20,000+ URL's on the subject. There is a specific page dedicated to Scottish Genealogical Links but really the entire set of pages is worth a thorough investigation for anyone researching their family tree.
• Researching Your Scottish Family History by Joanne Winters provides another helpful introduction for people starting out on this task.

Usenet Newsgroup
There is a Usenet newsgroup for British (including Scottish) genealogy. But be warned! It is a very active group and the volume of traffic is huge! But someone may be researching a complementary area to yourself so it may be worth checking.

Professional Researchers

There are also professional firms available who will carry out research for you (for a fee, of course!). If you want the on-line addresses of some of these organisations, see Genealogy Links Page on this site.

Good hunting!

By Alan Scott

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