SCOTLAND
Counties
For a more detailed look at how county boundaries have changed over time, take a look at the detailed county maps.
INFORMATION RELATED TO ALL OF SCOTLAND
Archives and Libraries
- Scotland - Archives and Libraries - links and information.
Bibliography
- Scotland - Bibliography - links and information.
- For information on Scottish family history publications, look in the appropriate sections on this page, or look in the appropriate county pages for publications for particular areas. Bookshops selling them include Scottish Genealogy Society and Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society. The latter lists its own publications on its web pages, but also has a printed catalogue with books from other societies and publishers.
- See also the National Library of Scotland and the National Records of Scotland pages.
Biography
- Scotland - Biography - links and information.
- There are many books which might be useful here, but some include:
- The Scottish Nation: or the surnames, families, literature, honours and biographical history of the people of Scotland by William Anderson, published in 3 volumes between 1866 and 1877
- A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen by Robert Chambers, first published in 1835 at London
- Chambers Scottish Biographical Dictionary, edited by Rosemary Goring, and published at Edinburgh by Chambers in 1992 (468 pages)
- Dictionary of National Biography, published since 1885 and also on CD-ROM. The latest edition, the Oxford DNB published 2004 is available online. Searches are free, detail biographies can be obtained by paying, but many libraries have subscriptions which can often be used by library card holders from their home computers.
Cemeteries
- The Scottish Genealogy Society has published many booklets of monumental inscriptions and also has a large collection of lists at its library in Edinburgh. Many local societies are publishing lists for their own areas. See individual counties for more details (where available).
- The Find-a-Grave page gives details of the graves of the rich and famous together with biographical information.
- Graveyard and Gravestone Trusts and Projects provides links to graveyard trusts and projects across Scotland, elsewhere in the UK and beyond. It seeks volunteers to make surveys, and gives advice on recording the condition and information on grave stones. It is a project of The Council for Scottish Archaeology and Historic Scotland.
Census
- Scotland - Census - links and information.
Chronology
- An interactive Timeline of Scottish History provided by the National Library of Scotland.
Church History
- Scotland - Church History - links and information.
Church Records
- Scotland - Church Records - links and information.
Civil Registration
Scotland - Civil Registration - links and information.Correctional Institutions
- Crime and Punishment published by the National Records of Scotland examines the nature of crime and punishment in Scotland between the 16th and 20th centuries. The booklet is 28 pages long and has ISBN 0 870874 33 1.
Court Records
- Various court records are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. These records include records of testaments and inventories, as well as civil and criminal court records.
Description and Travel
There are many websites which can be helpful for finding out about Scotland, whether you are planning to visit or not. Here are just a few of them (in no particular order):- Scotland.org
- Scottish Tourist Board (VisitScotland.com)
- About Scotland
- Travel Scotland
- Historic Scotland (Government site)
- Friends of Scotland - Aspects of contemporary Scotland including culture, education and business, a website supported by government.
- Statistical Accounts of Scotland - not just statistics, "Accounts of Scottish life from the 18th and 19th centuries" with a mass of descriptive information on a parish-by-parish basis.
- The Old Home Town has photographs and comments about various communities, which include Cromarty, Orkney, Invergordon, Tain, Fortrose and Rosemarkie, Inverness.
- Geograph is a co-operative project aiming to put a photograph from every 1 kilometer grid square of the UK and Ireland free on Internet. At April 2015 it has almost 4.5m images covering 82% of grid squares including many photos of churches, town and village centres and streets.
Directories
- A useful guide is D.R.Torrance's Scottish Trades, Professions, Vital Documents & Directories, published by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
Dwellings
- The DiCamillo Companion to British and Irish Country Houses aims to list details of every country house ever built. There is a mass of information about history, architects, owners, estates, access, use as film sets, etc. You can search by county or town, as well as by house or owner name, etc.
Emigration and Immigration
- For general information see our United Kingdom and Ireland Emigration and Immigration page.
- For a published guide on the subject, see Scots Overseas - A Selected Bibliography by D. Whyte, published by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
- Iain Kerr has written an article entitled Scots-Irish and the Clearances - The movement of people between Scotland and Ireland - an onward emigration to North America, Australia and New Zealand.
- The Stonemason by Douglas MacGowan is based on Donald Macleod's Chronicle of Scotland's Highland Clearances. Douglas MacGowan had a good website on the clearances, but at June 2005 it no longer seems to be available.
- One mailing list dealing with Scots emigrants to a specific area of the world is Cape-Fear-Scots. Browse up and down from there to see other email lists for Scots emigration.
- Ellis Island was the main place of entry of immigrants to the United States. It has been estimated that nearly half of all Americans today can trace their family history to at least one person who passed through the Port of New York at Ellis Island. The American Family Immigration History Centre with partners including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provide a searchable database of immigrants, and much background information.
- Pier 21 in Halifax was Canada's "front door" for immigrants, troops, and evacuees from 1928 to 1971. It was opened as a museum in 1999, and has a website with photos of ships, accounts by immigrants, and a good page of links to immigration websites in Canada and other countries.
- British and Irish Immigration to New Zealand 1840-1914 from NZHistory.net includes Regional Origins of Scots Migrants
- The Scottish Who Came to Australia - extracts from this book by Malcolm D Prentis, published 1983 or 1987 in the Australian Ethnic Heritage Series from AE press. There are many databases and records of immigrants to Australia, e.g. to New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria.
- Scottish Strays Marriage Index is provided online by the Anglo-Scottish Family History Society. Members and others have contributed details of marriages outside Scotland where one partner was from Scotland
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
- For a general guide to Scotland, see Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland, edited by John Keay and Julia Keay and published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 1994. This book which has 1046 pages has ISBN 0-00-255082-2.
- A useful resource for Scottish genealogists is Lawrence R. Burness' A Scottish Historian's Glossary, published by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
Gazetteers
- The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Scotland and Wales and can be searched by place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg NZ183848). If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will initially be presented with a drop-down list of the matching place-names.
Search the GENUKI Gazetteer.
- Scottish researchers may also be interested in the online Gazetteer for Scotland. The Gazetteer for Scotland is a vast encyclopaedia, featuring details of towns, villages, bens and glens from the Scottish Borders to the Northern Isles. The first comprehensive gazetteer produced for Scotland since 1885, it includes tourist attractions, industries and historical sites, together with histories of family names and biographies of famous people associated with Scotland. A joint venture between the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, it has (at April 2015) some 23,000 entries.
- ScotlandsPlaces provides a search, particularly for places which are problematical in some way, e.g. boundary changes. It also has links to other gazetteers.
- See also the Names, Geographical section.
Genealogy
- Scotland - Genealogy - links and information.
- Society for One-Place Studies - Scotland.
- Register of One-Place Studies - Scotland.
Handwriting
- Two useful guides for reading old Scottish documents are
- Scottish Handwriting 1500-1700 - a self-help pack by Alison Rosie, published by the Scottish Records Association, 1994 with ISBN 1 870874 04 8
- Scottish Handwriting 1150-1650 by Grant G Simpson, published by Aberdeen University Press, 1986 (140 pages) with ISBN 0 900015 41 1 (Hbk), 0 08 034516 6 (Pbk)
Historical Geography
- GENUKI is organised on the basis of historic counties. The following associates the more modern administrative areas with the GENUKI pages which cover those areas.
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- Administrative Areas of Scotland describes the changes introduced in 1975.
History
- Scotland - History - links and information.
(Kirk Session - see Church Records)
Land and Property
- Many land and property records are held at the National Records of Scotland of which probably the main ones are the Registers of Sasines, recording the transfer of ownership of land.
- Registers of Scotland keep Scotland's National Land and Property Registers. They have digitised the search sheets which provide a way of finding the deeds and sasines for a property.
- Alan Stewart's book Gathering the Clans - Tracing Scottish Ancestry on the Internet has a very helpful section on land records.
- Retours of Services of Heirs (1544-1699) and Services of Heirs in Scotland (1700-1859) are now available on CD from the Scottish Genealogy Society. (These are new computerised versions of the long out of print standard reference works for inheritance of landed property in Scotland, from the 16th century to the mid 19th century. Not every inheritance was properly registered, sometimes the transfer was much more informal, but these indexes to surviving inheritance records are invaluable for genealogists researching Scottish landowners, big or small.)
Language and Languages
- Scotland - Language and Languages - links and information.
Law and Legislation
- Most legal records in Scotland are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. Green's Glossary of Scottish Legal Terms may be of interest to anyone researching these records. It can be purchased through a number of family history societies and will be found in many libraries.
- Published listings of lawyers include:
- The Faculty of Advocates in Scotland 1532-1943 edited by Sir Francis J. Grant, published by Scottish Record Society, 1944
- The Lord Advocates of Scotland by George W.T. Omond, published in 3 volumes (1883-1914).
- History of the Society of Advocates in Aberdeen edited by John A. Henderson, published by New Spalding Club, 1912
- History of the Society of Writers to H.M. Signet (including list of members from 1594-1890), published by the Society of Writers to H.M. Signet in 1890
- The Register of the Society of Writers to the Signet, published at Edinburgh in 1983 (lists members up to recent times)
- Scottish law list, published 1848-1849
- Index juridicus: the Scottish law list from 1852 onwards
Maps
- A guide to Scottish maps, their history and so on, was published by the Scottish Library Association in 1991. The Scot and his maps by Margaret Wilkes is extensively illustrated and includes a further reading list at the back. It is 48 pages long and its ISBN is 0 900649 81 X.
- Both the National Library of Scotland and the National Records of Scotland have large collections of maps and plans. About 800 maps from the period 1560-1928 are available online. Local archive centres and libraries around Scotland will often hold maps for their areas.
- Scotland under Robert The Bruce is a printed map produced by John Garnons Williams, which maps Scotland with the spellings of place names and clan names as they were at 1314, the year of Robert the Bruce's victory over the English at Bannockburn. The map shows over 600 place-names and 170 clan names in their earliest forms.
(Maritime History - see Merchant Marine)
Merchant Marine
- See the United Kingdom and Ireland Merchant Marine page in GENUKI.
- See the Scotland Merchant Marine page on the FamilySearch Wiki.
- David Dobson has written many books about Scottish maritime history, including lists of mariners and his Scottish Maritime Records, 1600-1850 - a guide for Family Historians, published January 1997 by Clearfield, ISBN 9780806347172 (available at Amazon and Waterstones).
Migration, Internal
- R. Houston's article Geographical mobility in Scotland, 1652-1811: the evidence of testimonials, published in the Journal of Historical Geography 11, 4, (1985) pp. 379-394, describes a study of geographical mobility using the records of testimonials recorded in the Kirk Session records of 16 parishes in Lowland Scotland.
Military History
- Many Scottish service records are held in The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) in London. See also the military sections of the main UK and Ireland page in GENUKI.
- Commemorating Scotland's War, a number of events led by the University of Edinburgh commemorating Scotland's contribution to the First World War.
- Scottish Military Research Group is an association open to anyone with an interest in Scottish Military history and genealogy. The website contains the fully transcribed Glasgow Rolls of Honour for the First and Second World War.
- Scottish Military History records the Lineage and Uniforms of the Regiments of Scotland from the 1660's to the present day.
- The Scottish Military History Society which exists to encourage the study of the Scottish Regiments of the British Army and the Commonwealth no longer appears to have a website. However Scotsmart may provide alternative military research resources.
- WW1 New Zealand Expeditionary Force members with Scottish next of kin - Christine Clements provides this list, "Members of the NZEF - 1914 - 1918 with a next-of-kin address in Scotland", which contains 1663 names. From her home page, choose "New Zealand and World War One".
- Jim Beckett has compiled a number of booklets listing Scots soldiers serving in the British Army. There are copies at the Scottish Genealogy Society - see the Military section of their library catalogue
(Monumental Inscriptions - see Cemeteries)
Names, Geographical
- Scottish Personal Names & Place Names - A bibliography is a general guide to books on Scottish personal and place names. It was published by the Scottish Genealogy Society in 1993 and may be purchased through their online ordering system.
- See also the Gazetteers section.
Names, Personal
- To find links to online surname lists (collections of people's surname interests) look in the relevant county pages, or check the master list of surname lists, again elsewhere in GENUKI.
- Scottish Personal Names & Place Names - A Bibliography is a general guide to books on Scottish personal and place names. It was published by the Scottish Genealogy Society in 1993 and may be purchased from them.
- Guides to forenames and surnames include:
- Scottish Forenames by Donald Whyte, published by Birlinn Ltd, 1996 (205 pages), ISBN 1 874744 72 6
- Scottish Christian Names by Leslie Alan Dunkling, first published by Johnston & Bacon (Books) Ltd., Stirling, 1978, ISBN 0 7179 4249 4.
- The Surnames of Scotland by George F. Black, published by Birlinn Ltd, 1993 (838 pages), ISBN 1 874744 07 6.
- Scots often named children by following a simple set of rules. Don't use these as a firm guide (there were often variations, for all sorts of reasons) but you may find that some of your ancestors used these too:
- 1st son named after father's father
- 2nd son named after mother's father
- 3rd son named after father
- 1st daughter named after mother's mother
- 2nd daughter named after father's mother
- 3rd daughter named after mother
- Scottish Surname Variants and Scottish Forename Variants provided by ScotlandsPeople.
Newspapers
- A number of publications give information about old Scottish newspapers, including where they can be found today:
- Directory of Scottish Newspapers by Joan P.S. Ferguson, published by the National Library of Scotland in 1984
- NEWSPLAN: Report of the Newsplan Project in Scotland, published by the British Library in 1994
- The Waterloo Directory of Scottish Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900 edited by John S. North, published in 2 volumes in 1989 by North Waterloo Academic Press, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
- Online Newspapers - Scotland provides links to Scottish newspaper websites.
- Abyz Web Links Inc have provided many links to Newspapers, News Media and News Sources relating to Scotland.
Nobility
- For a classic guide to the peerage in Scotland see Sir James Balfour Paul's The Scots Peerage published in 9 volumes between 1904 and 1914 in Edinburgh. (Now available on CD from the Scottish Genealogy Society.)
- A recent guide to tracing noble ancestors, particularly in Scotland, is Jeremy Duncan's Tracing Your Royal Ancestors, ISBN 0 947749 004, published in 1994 at Perth (31 pages).
- Scottish Royal Genealogy - an interesting site which augments the SCT-ROYAL Genealogy Mailing List.
Occupations
- A useful guide is D.R.Torrance's Scottish Trades, Professions, Vital Documents & Directories, published by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
- A list of occupations from the index to Scottish Wills and Testaments 1500-1875, provided by ScotlandsPeople
- For information on sailors in the past, see the Merchant Marine section.
- Three useful work-related publications. The first is a general study of work in Scotland since 1800. The other two are specific works about farm servants in Lowland Scotland.
- Industrial Nation: Work, Culture and Society in Scotland, 1800-Present by W.W.Knox, published by Edinburgh University Press in 1999.
- Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914, edited by T.M.Devine, published by John Donald Publishers Ltd. in 1984.
- Herds and Hinds: Farm Labour in Lowland Scotland, 1900-1939 by Richard Anthony, published by Tuckwell Press Ltd. in 1997.
Periodicals
- The Scottish Genealogy Society's quarterly journal The Scottish Genealogist covers genealogy throughout Scotland.
- A monthly magazine full of Scottish material is the Scots Magazine (first published in 1739).
Poorhouses, Poor Law, etc.
- The Workhouse in Scotland from Peter Higginbotham is a history of the poor law and poorhouses in Scotland.
- Poor Relief in Scotland published by the National Records of Scotland in 1995 looks at the development of poor relief in the country between the 15th and 20th centuries. It includes many facsimile copies of original records and is 32 pages long, with ISBN 0 870874 18 8.
Population
- A useful work is Scottish Population History from the Seventeenth Century to the 1930s, edited by Michael Flinn and published by Cambridge University Press in 1977.
- Another work in this field is James Kyd's Scottish Population Statistics which was published by the Scottish Academic Press in 1952 and reprinted in 1976.
Probate Records
- A searchable index to Scottish Wills & Testaments from 1500-1901, comprising over 500,000 names of 'defuncts', is now available online at ScotlandsPeople
- Most records of wills and inventories are held in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. Many published indexes can be consulted in local libraries in Scotland, and also through LDS Family History Centres around the world.
Schools
- A happie and golden tyme published by the National Records of Scotland looks at education in Scotland since the fourteenth century. It includes many facsimile copies of original records and is 20 pages long, with ISBN 0 870874 15 3.
Social Life and Customs
- Scottish Customs from the Cradle to the Grave by Margaret Bennett is full of information about life in Scotland, right from childbirth through to death and burial. The book was published by Polygon in 1992 and its ISBN is 0-7486-6118-2.
- Two publications by the National Records of Scotland which look at aspects of social life in Scotland in the past are Hatches, Matches and Despatches (16 pages) and Feast to Festival (27 pages). The first of these looks at customs surrounding birth, marriage and death in Scotland. The second looks at entertainment, from the medieval times right through to the modern day.
Societies
- A list of Scottish family history societies.
- The Scottish Association of Family History Societies provides online its helpful bulletin which has news of societies and of genealogy and records in Scotland.
Statistics
- For a social and economic record of the parishes of Scotland, together with masses of statistical material, see Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland which was compiled in the 1790s and reprinted in more recent years by EP Publishing Limited of Wakefield, England.
- Follow-up works to this were the New Statistical Account (also known as the Second Statistical Account) which was prepared in the 1830s and 1840s; and more recently the Third Statistical Account which has been prepared since the Second World War.
- The online version of The Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-1799 and 1845.
- See also the Population section above.
Taxation
- Many taxation records are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh.