Scottish Geography
If everything north of Hadrian's Wall is all a bit "Here be Dragons" to you, then have a roam around the following free websites to familiarise yourself, literally, with the lay of the land. You will need this knowledge when you come to search by place on most of the online databases.
National Library of Scotland's Digital Maps Collection
Excellent collection of maps at different scales and covering different time periods. In particular, explore the very large scale town maps with every building marked - these will help you find not only places of residence but also work places, churches, cemeteries and poorhouses. Also check out their 6 volumes of the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland.
One particular gem on this site is the Scotland Boundaries page. Use it to find out what parish a place was in and see all the adjacent parishes as well overlaid on old maps.
Excellent collection of maps at different scales and covering different time periods. In particular, explore the very large scale town maps with every building marked - these will help you find not only places of residence but also work places, churches, cemeteries and poorhouses. Also check out their 6 volumes of the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland.
One particular gem on this site is the Scotland Boundaries page. Use it to find out what parish a place was in and see all the adjacent parishes as well overlaid on old maps.
Registration Districts of Scotland
This page on the National Records of Scotland website will help you get to grips with Scottish registration districts ... all 1082 of them at their 1910 peak apparently! Why so many? They were based on the original Church of Scotland parishes in 1855 but were winnowed down considerably in the 20th century. The documents you can download from this site will help you track down the reference numbers you will need to look out for in the indexes if you are very unfamiliar with the place names. Look out for how the place name might change slightly or even radically over time.
This page on the National Records of Scotland website will help you get to grips with Scottish registration districts ... all 1082 of them at their 1910 peak apparently! Why so many? They were based on the original Church of Scotland parishes in 1855 but were winnowed down considerably in the 20th century. The documents you can download from this site will help you track down the reference numbers you will need to look out for in the indexes if you are very unfamiliar with the place names. Look out for how the place name might change slightly or even radically over time.
GENUKI for Scotland
Volunteer site organised by historic county and populated with a wide range of useful information and links to other websites.
Be warned, this is a very easy site to get lost in, so if you are looking for specific help on an area or topic, keep focused and try not to get distracted. Once you get into the counties, there are some very good parish links accompanied by clear maps and advice on local records. As it's a volunteer site, there may be some places that are not as well described as others, but there is plenty to inform and inspire your research.
Volunteer site organised by historic county and populated with a wide range of useful information and links to other websites.
Be warned, this is a very easy site to get lost in, so if you are looking for specific help on an area or topic, keep focused and try not to get distracted. Once you get into the counties, there are some very good parish links accompanied by clear maps and advice on local records. As it's a volunteer site, there may be some places that are not as well described as others, but there is plenty to inform and inspire your research.
ScotlandsPlaces
Useful gazetteer to help you find out more about unfamiliar localities. In particular, if you are struggling to identify a place name from a census, say, consult the Ordnance Survey Name Books for the county to learn more - be sure to scroll down from any images to see the transcriptions.
The site also has some unusual Tax Records, including one of my favourites - Farm Horse Tax records! No joke, these helped me find out more about a (cuckolded!) husband of a Scottish ancestor! Just remember you need to search or browse by place name.
Useful gazetteer to help you find out more about unfamiliar localities. In particular, if you are struggling to identify a place name from a census, say, consult the Ordnance Survey Name Books for the county to learn more - be sure to scroll down from any images to see the transcriptions.
The site also has some unusual Tax Records, including one of my favourites - Farm Horse Tax records! No joke, these helped me find out more about a (cuckolded!) husband of a Scottish ancestor! Just remember you need to search or browse by place name.
Places of Worship in Scotland
This is a useful site I stumbled across recently when I was trying to pinpoint exactly where specific churches where located in Kincardineshire. This volunteer run site has some very useful information on dates of construction and every church is pinned to an OS map. Sadly, there is no information on where any surviving records are located as it is primarily a project focused on the buildings. However, be aware that there could have been many places of worship within any nominal parish in the past because of the many different schisms in the Protestant faith in Scotland. This Churches of Scotland timeline tries to depict these schisms graphically - good luck working it all out!
This is a useful site I stumbled across recently when I was trying to pinpoint exactly where specific churches where located in Kincardineshire. This volunteer run site has some very useful information on dates of construction and every church is pinned to an OS map. Sadly, there is no information on where any surviving records are located as it is primarily a project focused on the buildings. However, be aware that there could have been many places of worship within any nominal parish in the past because of the many different schisms in the Protestant faith in Scotland. This Churches of Scotland timeline tries to depict these schisms graphically - good luck working it all out!
Canmore - National Record of the Historical Environment.
This is another useful place to try to hunt down old churches and other buildings, particularly if you suspect that they may have fallen into disrepair or disappeared. Search by name or general location and you may find images and clearly defined map locations. You can also get involved by contributing information yourself.
This is another useful place to try to hunt down old churches and other buildings, particularly if you suspect that they may have fallen into disrepair or disappeared. Search by name or general location and you may find images and clearly defined map locations. You can also get involved by contributing information yourself.
Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Scotland. Published in 1846, this gazetteer of places contains lots of descriptive information on the geography, geology and history of villages, hamlets and towns of early Victorian Scotland. For even the smallest of places, he lists the numbers of inhabitants. Lewis was also quite scrupulous about recording the ecclesiastical landscape with details of the local church which is going to help you track down records.
Glasgow Guide to Changed Street Names. This is a bit of a niche set of pages, but trust me you will come to bless them if you start turning up a lot of old Glasgow addresses in records that you just cannot find on any modern map. The Ward Maps that accompany the 1913-1914 Valuation Rolls on The Glasgow Story website are also a great way to see the old street names in situ. There are a lot of streets that had their names changed and certainly in the East End of the city there were vast swathes of tenement housing and older churches that no longer exist. Glesca Pals is a very personal website that has some great old photographs of this area if you are interested in finding out more.
Read On... Scottish Records & Resources
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2022
