Assets for Scottish family tree | The Global Today

Posted by Sean Daly on Jan 21, 2023

Scotland has been a part of the UK because the Acts of Union in 1707, however has retained its personal authorized and academic methods, its personal church and tradition.

Historic context

Practically two millennia in the past, the nation’s tribes fought the Romans (and misplaced, however the Romans realized they might go no additional); Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall have been constructed to maintain the Caledonians out of Roman Britannia. The Romans later withdrew from the British Isles; Christianity arrived in Scotland across the sixth century; two centuries later, the Vikings arrived within the Northern Isles, then began settlements on the mainland whereas persevering with raids. Within the mid-Ninth century, the Scottish tribes united and defeated the Vikings, who nonetheless remained in Shetland and Orkney. By the tenth century, these Norsemen have been Christians, and by the fifteenth century, the Northern Isles have been completely joined to Scotland. From medieval instances, England handled its northern neighbor as an unruly territory to be dominated; there have been two wars of Scottish independence within the late thirteenth and early 14th centuries which confirmed Scotland’s standing as a separate kingdom. The Protestant Reformation reached Scotland within the fifteenth century; by the mid-Sixteenth century, Scotland’s Presbyterian Kirk (Church) was based. In 1603, James VI of Scotland assumed the English and Irish thrones, however this union of the three kingdoms was to not final. Non secular strife between Protestants and Catholics continued even after the Acts of Union, and Scottish Lowlanders and Highlanders have been at odds: the previous extra welcoming of the English, the latter far much less. The defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite rising within the mid-18th century confirmed Scotland’s position as a nation inside the UK.

Though these battles over the centuries did end result within the torching and destruction of some cities, archives all through Scotland have survived intact, which suggests as we speak’s genealogists have many report units to analysis their ancestry!

As all the time, understand that the spelling of household names was not standardized till the twentieth century. Particularly, for any identify beginning with “Mc”, search additionally for the variant “Mac” and vice versa.

Word additionally that in Scotland, two languages aside from English are spoken: Scots (a sister language of English), typically referred to as Broad Scots, spoken principally within the Lowlands and Northern Isles (and within the north of Northern Eire dealing with Scotland), and Scottish Gaelic (associated to Irish), the indigenous Celtic language beforehand spoken all through the Highlands however now primarily spoken within the Outer Hebrides and and the western Highlands. This FamilySearch document (PDF) could also be helpful for understanding the place these languages have been and are spoken.

Scottish sources at Geneanet

There are Scottish collections accessible at Geneanet, however they don’t seem to be instantly accessible by a Scotland web page or portal. As an alternative, our collections are related to counties or areas of the UK. Furthermore, for technical causes, the UK areas we use are the 1975-1996 areas, not the council areas in use since. As an excessive instance, at Geneanet, information from the council areas Glasgow Metropolis, North and South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire, North, South, and East Ayrshire, East and West Dunbartonshire, and Inverclyde are all searchable beneath Strathclyde. That stated, some areas didn’t change in 1996: Shetland, Orkney, Borders. Most of our holdings about Scotland are digitized books in our Family tree Library for Premium members, and volunteer contributions (that are all the time free) similar to our Save our Graves mission. In case your ancestor fell in World Battle I in France or Belgium and is buried in Europe, it’s doable a Geneanet volunteer has photographed his grave or memorial.

Scottish family tree sources

We have now compiled an inventory of sources for Scottish family tree which we imagine shall be helpful for you. If you already know of an excellent useful resource we missed, please tell us within the feedback!

• ScotslandsPeople. That is the official web site of the Nationwide Data of Scotland and is a wonderful useful resource for looking government records and archives (see their information here) and acquiring doc photos for a charge. There may be entry to the statutory registers of births, marriages, and deaths (civil information began in 1855; a PDF abstract is here); census returns; church information; valuation rolls; and authorized information from Scotland’s courts of legislation. Some unindexed report photos could be browsed; nevertheless, usually, there’s a pay-per-view system (credits, vouchers) to see a supply doc after discovering an entry in an index. For privateness causes, births lower than 100 years previous, marriages and divorces lower than 75 years previous, and deaths lower than 50 years previous are solely accessible for buy as official certificates.
• The National Records of Scotland. Along with ScotlandsPeople described above, the NRS (beforehand often known as the Nationwide Archives of Scotland) has different websites and sources of curiosity to genealogists. Begin with the National Records of Scotland Family History Guide. ScotlandsPlaces has historic maps and different knowledge. ScotlandsCensus has an historical timeline of the census and the NRS’ major web site has detailed information about each of the censuses (each ten years beginning in 1841; 1921 the latest accessible). Scottish Handwriting has online resources and in-person classes in Edinburgh in palaeography, the research of historic types of handwriting (the UK Nationwide Archives has a useful page as well). Don’t miss the NRS’ informative guide about the pre-civil Old Parish Registers of the Church of Scotland (births, christenings, banns, marriages, deaths and burials) 1553-1854, which can be found at ScotlandsPeople.
• The Scottish Council on Archives. This nonprofit group helps archives at each degree in Scotland, together with neighborhood teams, with useful best-practices for archivists, recommendation for historians and genealogists, and an informative family history page. Don’t miss the SCA’s helpful Scottish Ancestry Guide (PDF).
• Ancestry.co.uk. Geneanet’s guardian firm has a robust presence within the UK and if you’re looking for long-lost American cousins by family tree or genetic family tree (DNA), Ancestry is a wonderful alternative. Begin with Ancestry’s Scotland portal.
• FamilySearch. This free web site run by the LDS church has a wiki page on Scottish genealogy, together with a desk displaying pre- and post-1974 areas. There’s a guide to Scottish genealogy (PDF) which is 15 years previous, however nonetheless has helpful info for genealogists getting acquainted with Scottish family tree. Three collections of curiosity are: Scotland Births and Baptisms 1564-1950; Scotland Marriages 1561-1910; and Scotland Church Records and Kirk Session Records 1658-1919.
• National Library of Scotland. This web site has numerous helpful sources: a family history portal, a information to Scottish newspaper indexes, an extensive maps collection, Scottish Post Office Directories, and even a portal at the Internet Archive, with titles similar to The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland, 1868.
• Scottish Genealogy Society. Based in 1953 and based mostly in Edinburgh, the Society has a variety of sources for researching family tree in Scotland.
• Forces War Records. This UK web site, a sister firm of Geneanet, has a variety of collections regarding UK troopers.
• Scottish Military Research Group. This nonprofit is a useful useful resource for researching your Scottish navy ancestor.
• GENUKI. This volunteer-driven web site devoted to UK and Eire family tree has a Scotland portal.
• Visit Scotland. This web site by Scotland’s nationwide vacationer board has a page on ancestral research and affords a list of professional genealogists all through Scotland.
• The Highland Archive Centre. Positioned in Inverness, the middle has archives from the 14th century (particulars here).
• Cyndi’s List. Though some sources listed on Cyndi’s Scotland page are dated, others are newer.
• The Scottish Archive Network. SCAN is an older web site, and a few sources could also be on-line elsewhere, however the web site is price a go to.
• The Church of Scotland. See this page for details about the place and the right way to entry Church of Scotland historic information.
• Scottish Mining Website. In case your ancestor labored within the mines, don’t miss this useful resource which covers all features of miners’ lives together with accidents and disasters.
• Scottish Catholic Archives. In case your ancestor was Catholic, look into these collections.
• Court of the Lord Lyon. This web site (with its .scot area identify!) is Scotland’s heraldic authority. In case you have any nobles in your clans reaching again 350 years, the Lord Lyon will know concerning the arms issued. Word that the index of All Arms Bearings in Scotland from 1672 to the early twentieth century is on the market at ScotlandsPeople, with the customary charge to view photos. Take a look at the Lyon Court docket’s Vimeo or Youtube channels!
• Scotland BDM. This free web site is an alternate for sharing beginning/marriage/dying details about ancestors in Scotland.
• Friends of Dundee City Archives. This affiliation helps the work of archivists in Dundee. Of explicit curiosity: the Dundee Council Graveyards Burial Records useful resource.
• The Scottish Emigration Database. This mission undertaken years in the past on the College of Aberdeen paperwork Scottish emigrants to non-European ports for particular time durations a century in the past. See the links page for different emigration sources.
• Anglo Scots Family History Society. The Manchester and Lancashire Household Historical past Society has an Anglo-Scots web page and databases.
• The University of St Andrews in Fife has a special collections section in its library which homes the college’s archives, images, and manuscripts, some reaching again to the fifteenth century when the college was based.
• Scottish Jewish Archives Center. Based in 1987 and based mostly in Garnethill Synagogue in Glasgow, this useful resource paperwork the historical past of Jewish individuals in Scotland because the 18th century.
• Gazetteer for Scotland. This web site, supported by the College of GeoSciences of the College of Edinburgh and The Royal Scottish Geographical Society, is a helpful useful resource for pinpointing locations in Scotland.
• The Gazette. This web site has indexes of the Edinburgh Gazette and will have helpful nuggets for genealogists regarding corporations, wills and probate, awards and accreditations, and insolvency.
• The University of Aberdeen. Go to the college’s Library portal beginning with its Archive Collections which embody information of households, estates, organizations, and companies.
• Statistical Accounts of Scotland. This mission by EDINA of the College of Edinburgh may give you helpful historic details about the locations the place your ancestor lived in Scotland within the early nineteenth century.
• Hathitrust. Based in 2008, this web site is a nonprofit collaborative of educational and analysis libraries with over 17 million digitized books, periodicals, and pictures and belongs within the toolkit of each genealogist. Digitized tomes from the Google Books mission could be discovered right here. There are public area books regarding Scotland accessible for obtain (per web page, or complete e book); for instance, Scottish Parochial Registers by William B. Turnbull, revealed in Edinburgh by T.G. Stevenson in 1849. Or: The Origin and Signification of Scottish Surnames by Clifford Stanley Sims, 1862. And even: The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning, and History by George Fraser Black, 1946. Or the Scottish Genealogy chapter of A Complement to Methods to Write the Historical past of a Household: A Information for the Genealogist by W.P.W. Phillimore, 1896.
• Scottish Indexes is a volunteer-driven web site with some interesting record sets not discovered elsewhere.
• Culture Perth & Kinross. This web site has numerous databases of curiosity to anybody with an ancestor from the realm.
• Dumfries & Galloway Council. See the Historical Indexes section for information particular to this area.
• Barry Griffin’s name heatmaps. Barry’s no-frills web site affords a really helpful useful resource: a heatmap of surnames in Scotland, compiled from the 1901 census. Enter a household identify; you will notice if the identify was frequent all through Scotland, or concentrated in a specific space.
• Glasgow City Archives. Wealthy collections can be found, most held by the Mitchell Library.
• Virtual Mitchell. This older web site from the Mitchell Library in Glasgow has 1000’s of photos of Glasgow’s streets and buildings from the Mitchell’s Archives and Particular Collections and different sources. Bear in mind nevertheless that photos are usually not excessive decision and are watermarked. It’s doable to order a print of a picture.
• The Scottish Association of Family History Societies. This umbrella group of Scottish household historical past societies promotes and encourages the research of Scottish household historical past.
• Scottish Highlander Photo Archive. The SHPA has over 8000 digitized images from the studio of Andrew Paterson and his son Hector in Inverness from 1897 to 1980, in addition to from different sources.
• The Internet Archive has a set of historic publications of the Scottish Record Society.
• Fb teams. This platform has turn out to be common for genealogy-focused teams. “Scottish Family tree”, “Scottish Ancestry and Genealogical Analysis”, “Scottish Ancestor”, and different teams might have members prepared to help you when you have a query. These teams are normally non-public, so make sure to perceive and settle for every group’s guidelines.
• Electric Scotland. This web site by Alastair McIntyre has many historic sources.
• The Hawick Word Book (PDF). This e-book by Douglas Scott paperwork individuals, locations, and dialect of the Scottish Borders city of Hawick.

Did we miss any sources? Please tell us within the feedback! And don’t hesitate to ask for assist in our boards the place now we have a United Kingdom part. Geneanet members are useful and questions are monitored by help!