Tracing Scottish ancestry
How Scottish records differ: statutory registration from 1855 with more detail than England, Old Parish Registers, kirk sessions, testaments and the ScotlandsPeople pay-per-view system.
Scotland kept its own records and, for the family historian, kept them better. Statutory certificates name more relatives than their English counterparts, the Old Parish Registers are gathered in one place, and almost everything is searchable through one website. The trade-off is that you pay per image rather than by subscription, so planning your searches saves money.
ScotlandsPeople
The official site (scotlandspeople.gov.uk) holds the statutory registers, the Old Parish Registers, the censuses 1841 to 1921, Catholic registers, testaments (wills), valuation rolls and more. Searching indexes is free once you register; viewing an image costs credits, bought in bundles. Images of statutory births over 100 years old, marriages over 75 and deaths over 50 are available; more recent ones can be ordered as extracts.
Statutory registers, from 1855
Civil registration began in Scotland on 1 January 1855 and the records are unusually detailed:
| Birth | Child's name, date, time and place; both parents' names including the mother's maiden name; the date and place of the parents' marriage (from 1861; 1855 only in the first year). The 1855 records alone also give the parents' ages and birthplaces and the number of other children. |
|---|---|
| Marriage | Both parties' names, ages, occupations, addresses and marital status; both parents of both parties, including mothers' maiden names, and whether deceased. |
| Death | Name, age, occupation, marital status with spouse's name, both parents' names including mother's maiden name, cause of death, and the informant and relationship. A Scottish death certificate can take you back a generation on its own. |
Old Parish Registers (OPRs), before 1855
The Church of Scotland registers of baptisms, proclamations of banns and burials, from the 1550s in a few parishes but patchy before 1700 and thin for burials throughout. They are indexed on ScotlandsPeople and FamilySearch. Baptisms often name the mother as well as the father (more than English registers did) and sometimes witnesses who were relatives. Marriages were recorded as proclamations, sometimes in both parties' parishes. Dissenting churches (Free Church, Secession churches) kept their own registers, many now at National Records of Scotland.
Kirk session records
The minutes of the parish church court dealt with discipline, poor relief and irregular marriages, and name ordinary people with their failings: the father of an illegitimate child, a couple rebuked for an irregular marriage, a family given relief. They are being digitised and are a rich source where the OPRs are bare.
Testaments
Scottish "wills" before 1868 covered moveable property only and are called testaments; testament testamentar if there was a will, testament dative if not. They are indexed and viewable on ScotlandsPeople 1513 to 1925 and often include an inventory. See wills and probate for the English contrast.
Naming patterns
Many Scottish families followed a convention: first son after the father's father, second son after the mother's father, third after the father; first daughter after the mother's mother, second after the father's mother, third after the mother. It isn't a rule, but it is a strong hint when choosing between two candidate couples.
Census and other records
The Scottish censuses 1841 to 1921 are on ScotlandsPeople (indexes free, images paid) and on the main subscription sites; the 1931 census survives and is due in 2032. Valuation rolls (from 1855) show heads of household and property; the sasine registers record land transactions back to 1617 and are the key to landed families. National Records of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland (maps, directories, newspapers) hold the rest.
Saving credits
Use the free index to narrow a search to one candidate before viewing. Start with a death (which names parents) rather than a birth. Where a record is also on a subscription site you already have, view it there. And check FamilySearch, which has free indexes to the OPRs and the 1841-1901 censuses. For the wider free picture, see free genealogy websites.