Search tips for ScotlandsPeople
If you have discovered that some of your Irish relatives made their way to Scotland and you have, of course, perused my "Settling under the Saltire" page for advice, you will no doubt be grappling with the ScotlandsPeople website to try to find their records.
The generic first screen, pictured left is very simple and good for casting your net very wide to begin with. However, once you get to the search screens specific to each source, then there is quite a lot of technical flexibility for searching. However, I'm not going to picture every screen and give you a step-by-step lesson in how to use them. What I can do, as ever, is give you some practical advice based on my own experiences and observations. There are quite a few of them listed under bold headings and with wee bits of the screens to illustrate what I mean - be sure to scroll to the bottom to see them all.
The generic first screen, pictured left is very simple and good for casting your net very wide to begin with. However, once you get to the search screens specific to each source, then there is quite a lot of technical flexibility for searching. However, I'm not going to picture every screen and give you a step-by-step lesson in how to use them. What I can do, as ever, is give you some practical advice based on my own experiences and observations. There are quite a few of them listed under bold headings and with wee bits of the screens to illustrate what I mean - be sure to scroll to the bottom to see them all.
Tips
The search screens have a little slider switch in blue prefixed "Turn Off Tips". Don't. This is a useful little feature that only activates green information boxes when you chose an option from a drop-down menu. Some of the advice is a bit bland, but some of it can be a very useful reminder of what there is, and what there is not, in the underlying data. If you are not finding what you hoped, check the tips and see if that might explain things. As in this example, you might be directed to more help too e.g. surname guidance which is very informative. |
Name Searching
The default is to search for exact names. I recommend that you make a conscious effort to use several different choices for the same search in order to find as many candidates as possible. There can be a lot of variation in spellings, especially in the old parish registers. See my page on Wildcard Searching for some tips for this option. Phonetic matching can be quite good for overcoming transcription errors. Name Variants is a good one for educating yourself on just how much a name can vary and you are reaping the benefit of lots of contributions from staff and online users. It is also a good one to use for forenames which have been abbreviated in a way that wildcards might not always pick up. That same surname guidance page will tell you more about these options. |
Gender
You can narrow down searches immediately by gender - the default is to search for both. I recommend that you leave this as it is for initial searches as there may well be several candidates that are marked as "U" for Unknown. There may be no forename for example, often the case for the burials of babies and infants or for widows, who may just be noted as "Widow McLeod" in the very oldest registers. Another reason for this may be that transcribers may have been unfamiliar with some more unusual Scottish names and have not been able to assign a gender to the record - Grizzell is one of my favourites! Also, did you know that both Christian and Stewart were quite common forenames for girls in some of the earlier records? You can always narrow down a very large group later to just recognisable males or females, but don't forget about the unknowns.
You can narrow down searches immediately by gender - the default is to search for both. I recommend that you leave this as it is for initial searches as there may well be several candidates that are marked as "U" for Unknown. There may be no forename for example, often the case for the burials of babies and infants or for widows, who may just be noted as "Widow McLeod" in the very oldest registers. Another reason for this may be that transcribers may have been unfamiliar with some more unusual Scottish names and have not been able to assign a gender to the record - Grizzell is one of my favourites! Also, did you know that both Christian and Stewart were quite common forenames for girls in some of the earlier records? You can always narrow down a very large group later to just recognisable males or females, but don't forget about the unknowns.
Drop-down Choices
The drop-down choices generally apply to place names - counties, parishes and registration districts for example. I recommend that you do an open query - no names - for the place you are interested in to establish whether there are actually any records of the type you want. This particularly applies to deaths and burials in the old parish registers for example which are very sparse. Alternatively, check the coverage of old parish registers via the county PDFs on the National Records of Scotland website. These documents will also give you more precise information on the surviving time periods.
In this example you can legitimately choose the parish of Banchory Devenick for the county of Kincardine but there are in fact no burial records online - you'll be a long time faffing about with trying to find your relative with no success before that dawns on you, trust me!
The drop-down choices generally apply to place names - counties, parishes and registration districts for example. I recommend that you do an open query - no names - for the place you are interested in to establish whether there are actually any records of the type you want. This particularly applies to deaths and burials in the old parish registers for example which are very sparse. Alternatively, check the coverage of old parish registers via the county PDFs on the National Records of Scotland website. These documents will also give you more precise information on the surviving time periods.
In this example you can legitimately choose the parish of Banchory Devenick for the county of Kincardine but there are in fact no burial records online - you'll be a long time faffing about with trying to find your relative with no success before that dawns on you, trust me!
Parish and Registration District Numbers
Statutory Registration came into force in Scotland in 1855. Instead of using Poor Law Unions as the basis for the new Registration Districts (RD) like the rest of Britain and Ireland, Scotland turned every existing Church of Scotland parish into an RD ... over 1000 of them! This actually works in your favour as there are going to be smaller pools of candidates in any given time frame, even with common names.
The other thing to pay attention to is the number assigned to the parish or RD as this generally stayed the same (with some subdivisions suffixed /1, /2 etc) until around 1971 when Scotland underwent a major re-organisation of administrative units. Pay attention to the date ranges that apply for the names as after 1971 many of the lovely old parish names in the cities in particular morphed into rather more unlovely "compass point" labels that sound more like Russian gulags *sigh*.
The numbering was also done in an orderly fashion, starting in the far northeast of Scotland and sweeping round the country. This means that generally neighbouring parishes in the same county are in the same general range of numbers. If you are very unfamiliar with the geography of Scotland, then this should help you identify further possible nearby candidates from your results.
The National Records of Scotland has a very useful document - the Parishes and Registration Districts of Scotland number guide - that lists them all in numerical order, so consult this to get more familiar with the numbers. There are also separate guides for Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Statutory Registration came into force in Scotland in 1855. Instead of using Poor Law Unions as the basis for the new Registration Districts (RD) like the rest of Britain and Ireland, Scotland turned every existing Church of Scotland parish into an RD ... over 1000 of them! This actually works in your favour as there are going to be smaller pools of candidates in any given time frame, even with common names.
The other thing to pay attention to is the number assigned to the parish or RD as this generally stayed the same (with some subdivisions suffixed /1, /2 etc) until around 1971 when Scotland underwent a major re-organisation of administrative units. Pay attention to the date ranges that apply for the names as after 1971 many of the lovely old parish names in the cities in particular morphed into rather more unlovely "compass point" labels that sound more like Russian gulags *sigh*.
The numbering was also done in an orderly fashion, starting in the far northeast of Scotland and sweeping round the country. This means that generally neighbouring parishes in the same county are in the same general range of numbers. If you are very unfamiliar with the geography of Scotland, then this should help you identify further possible nearby candidates from your results.
The National Records of Scotland has a very useful document - the Parishes and Registration Districts of Scotland number guide - that lists them all in numerical order, so consult this to get more familiar with the numbers. There are also separate guides for Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Sorting Results
Once you have a set of results for any search, click on any of the column titles to sort them in either ascending or descending order. This will help you identify groups of records that might reveal interesting patterns e.g. groups of siblings being baptised in the same parish or to the same parents in the old parish registers. Sort by gender to group together all the "unknown" records so you can study these separately and understand why there was no gender assigned. Sort by year to reveal perhaps an older sibling who must have died for your ancestor to be given the same name.
Once you have a set of results for any search, click on any of the column titles to sort them in either ascending or descending order. This will help you identify groups of records that might reveal interesting patterns e.g. groups of siblings being baptised in the same parish or to the same parents in the old parish registers. Sort by gender to group together all the "unknown" records so you can study these separately and understand why there was no gender assigned. Sort by year to reveal perhaps an older sibling who must have died for your ancestor to be given the same name.
Married Woman and Widows
Once you start buying a few post 1855 records, you will quickly be delighted to discover that maiden names are diligently recorded in many places and have often been indexed too. If you are searching for the death of a married or widowed female relative, the search screen will give you an option to search with another surname which can be her maiden name - great for narrowing down long candidate lists when the married name is not uncommon.
If you are still struggling to find her under her married name then search for her with just her maiden name in the surname field and then try again to find her married record by using the combinations of year, forename, registration district that come up in the new list of results. Compare the age at death and the reference numbers to see if they match and you've probably found your woman. Here's an example of what I mean - this is the same woman:
Once you start buying a few post 1855 records, you will quickly be delighted to discover that maiden names are diligently recorded in many places and have often been indexed too. If you are searching for the death of a married or widowed female relative, the search screen will give you an option to search with another surname which can be her maiden name - great for narrowing down long candidate lists when the married name is not uncommon.
If you are still struggling to find her under her married name then search for her with just her maiden name in the surname field and then try again to find her married record by using the combinations of year, forename, registration district that come up in the new list of results. Compare the age at death and the reference numbers to see if they match and you've probably found your woman. Here's an example of what I mean - this is the same woman:
One other thing to watch out for in Scotland, is that widows sometimes reverted to their maiden names. If you cannot find your widowed ancestor in a census, then try searching for her under her maiden name - I've found a couple of ancestors this way. Incidentally, although there are no monumental inscriptions on ScotlandsPeople, this was also a very common practice on Scottish gravestones - you will find the wife engraved with her maiden name.
Finding Families in the Old Parish Registers
Baptisms and marriages in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs) generally do not contain a lot of information and burials are both scarce and sparse too. In fact burials may be little more than an entry that signifies the hire of a mortcloth. Therefore, although it's nice to have an image of the actual register entry, the cost can soon add up for little incremental benefit. So, here is my strategy for trying to find candidate family groups in these registers once you step back beyond the threshold of Statutory Registration in 1855, whilst trying to avoid choosing the wrong candidates.
Perhaps you have an ancestor who you have found in a census that indicates they were born before 1855 and you have an idea of the parish or area they think they were born in.
When you are looking for a marriage of the parents, be alert to what you might think are duplicate records albeit in different parishes. One of them may be a proclamation record (like a marriage bann in England) and if you look at both records, you should be able to work out the home parishes for the bride and the groom if they were different. Knowing that might help you to track down their baptisms more confidently.
Baptisms and marriages in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs) generally do not contain a lot of information and burials are both scarce and sparse too. In fact burials may be little more than an entry that signifies the hire of a mortcloth. Therefore, although it's nice to have an image of the actual register entry, the cost can soon add up for little incremental benefit. So, here is my strategy for trying to find candidate family groups in these registers once you step back beyond the threshold of Statutory Registration in 1855, whilst trying to avoid choosing the wrong candidates.
Perhaps you have an ancestor who you have found in a census that indicates they were born before 1855 and you have an idea of the parish or area they think they were born in.
- Search the OPRs for them with different name strategies as described above. Even if you think you know both parents names, only use the father's in any search as often the mother's name was not recorded.
- The date that appears in the results is generally the date of a baptism. There may be an actual date of birth in the record and to find that for free, search for the same record in the Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950 on FamilySearch as if it was recorded separately from the baptism it may be included in the transcript there. Children were generally baptised within days of their births but it was not uncommon for them to be baptised much later as older children, often at the same time as a new baby sibling.
- Search on just surname and father's name say and / or parish to see if you can assemble a group of siblings. Some or all of them may have the mother's name in the results too for corroboration. Note the date range for the baptisms and search again for just that surname in the parish. This should help you identify cousins all baptised with granddad or granny's name in the same decade! Seriously, you need to make sure you have not just chosen the first candidate that looks roughly right without considering other possible ones, particularly if you don't know the parents' names. There could be multiple families of the same surname in the parish baptising children with the same names in the same generation. My 4x Great Grandfather, Walter Riddell, had 4 grandsons all named for him, born in the same Lanarkshire parish.
- Check out the neighbouring parishes for more siblings too - see the Parish and Registration Districts tip above to identify them. Maps are always better of course. If you have access to Ancestry, try doing an open query on just the parish by number in the 1851 Scotland census collection and pick any of the results. Alongside the transcription of the record there will be a fuzzy coloured map and an option to view it. Click on this and you will see the relevant map from Phillimore's Atlas and Index of Parish Registers, great for not only seeing the names of adjacent parishes but also learning when the earliest registers date from.
When you are looking for a marriage of the parents, be alert to what you might think are duplicate records albeit in different parishes. One of them may be a proclamation record (like a marriage bann in England) and if you look at both records, you should be able to work out the home parishes for the bride and the groom if they were different. Knowing that might help you to track down their baptisms more confidently.
“Disruption of 1843” by David Octavius Hill (Public Domain at Wikimedia Commons)
Not finding someone in the Old Parish Registers?
This is where I need to come over all London Underground announcer and tell you to "Mind The Gap!" What do I mean by this? This rather crowded image is a depiction of the First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland following the "Disruption" in 1843. This was a major breakaway from the established Church of Scotland, largely as the result of a major rammy (as we say like to say in Glasgow) over patronage i.e. the right to appoint ministers. Many ministers left the fold and presumably many of their congregations went with them to new places of worship. This meant that a significant number of baptisms, marriages and burials for the decade before Statutory Registration are NOT online with ScotlandsPeople. Add to that the fact that earlier schisms in the church had already meant there were several other "flavours" of Protestant worship already in existence (e.g. Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist - see Churches of Scotland timeline), this means that you should not be surprised if you cannot find any trace of your ancestor in the Church of Scotland Old Parish Registers. Indeed, if you only find one "good" match, be highly suspicious and investigate what other places of worship might be in the parish or nearby (See Places of Worship in Scotland for example.)
Where are these alternative records? Some of the churches that split away later decided to rejoin the Church of Scotland and some of their records have made their way online with ScotlandsPeople and can be accessed under the "Other Churches" option. However, check the list first to see whether there is anything for the area you are interested in. Else, you are on the hunt for these records in archives or perhaps whatever governing church bodies that may still exist. The National Records of Scotland catalogue is a good place to start under the record collections starting with 'CH'. Alternatively, try the Scottish Archive Network catalogue for records in local archives. Links to both are on the NRS Catalogues & Indexes page.
Kirk Session Records
These Church of Scotland records were finally added to the site as browsable "Virtual Volumes" in 2021. These are a wonderful source for learning about the ebb and flow of contemporary life in the parish. They document the work of the parish elders and you might find all sorts of events mentioned in relation to your ancestors e.g. receipt of poor relief, recognising settlement, counts of heads of households, pew rents, mort cloth hire for burials etc. There are also some key life events like baptisms and marriages that might also only exist within these pages and did not make it into the Old Parish Registers. However, they are being widely touted as a really riveting gossipy read with much emphasis on SIN - ante-nuptial fornication (children born less than 9 months after the marriage being a bit of a giveaway!), tracking down fathers of illegitimate children, drunkenness and other bad behaviour, not keeping the Sabbath etc.
The first bit of advice is to read the Kirk Session Records guide as this explains at length what you can expect to find in the records. The records are not currently indexed and you need to think about how you are going to look for the right volume to answer your question. You are also going to have to set aside some quality time to carefully read through the pages to try to find the information you hope is in there. The very earliest volumes date from the 17th century and the handwriting can be a bit of a challenge. Later volumes may helpfully have notations in the margins that act as helpful bookmarks to the longer entries noted alongside.
Next, do the records actually survive for the parish you are interested in and where are they? Emma Maxwell from Scottish Indexes gave a really good talk at a recent online Scottish Association of Family History Societies conference where she passed on the following good advice;
These Church of Scotland records were finally added to the site as browsable "Virtual Volumes" in 2021. These are a wonderful source for learning about the ebb and flow of contemporary life in the parish. They document the work of the parish elders and you might find all sorts of events mentioned in relation to your ancestors e.g. receipt of poor relief, recognising settlement, counts of heads of households, pew rents, mort cloth hire for burials etc. There are also some key life events like baptisms and marriages that might also only exist within these pages and did not make it into the Old Parish Registers. However, they are being widely touted as a really riveting gossipy read with much emphasis on SIN - ante-nuptial fornication (children born less than 9 months after the marriage being a bit of a giveaway!), tracking down fathers of illegitimate children, drunkenness and other bad behaviour, not keeping the Sabbath etc.
The first bit of advice is to read the Kirk Session Records guide as this explains at length what you can expect to find in the records. The records are not currently indexed and you need to think about how you are going to look for the right volume to answer your question. You are also going to have to set aside some quality time to carefully read through the pages to try to find the information you hope is in there. The very earliest volumes date from the 17th century and the handwriting can be a bit of a challenge. Later volumes may helpfully have notations in the margins that act as helpful bookmarks to the longer entries noted alongside.
Next, do the records actually survive for the parish you are interested in and where are they? Emma Maxwell from Scottish Indexes gave a really good talk at a recent online Scottish Association of Family History Societies conference where she passed on the following good advice;
- You can search by place on Scotlands People but not all records survive and of those that do, not all have been digitised or immediately released as a Virtual Volume.
- Start with the NRS Catalogue and search by the name of the parish. Church of Scotland records are catalogued under the reference "CH2", so choose references beginning with "C". This rather blurry image is an example of what you can expect to see.
Note the different catalogue descriptions and the time periods the individual items cover. Also note the "traffic light" that appears at the end of the line. Remembering that this catalogue is primarily designed to support researchers visiting the National Records of Scotland, these coloured dots describe the accessibility of the records. Green and Red are fairly self-explanatory, but the yellow dot and invitation to "Check details" will tell you more. In this case, the items for Larkhall have been digitised and therefore are only available as a Virtual Volume. So, I should expect to find them on Scotlands People? Nope, not there yet (April 2021) - I'm going to have to be patient and keep checking in to see when they are uploaded.
You may also see a yellow dot and the words "Not Held" - click on the hyperlinked reference on the far left of the entry and you will find out more. For example, kirk session records pertaining to the parish of Balfron are not held by the NRS but by Stirling Archives. However, I learned from the catalogue that they have been digitised and when I looked on Scotlands People they are indeed there.
Be aware of 2 key dates when you are using these resources;
You may also see a yellow dot and the words "Not Held" - click on the hyperlinked reference on the far left of the entry and you will find out more. For example, kirk session records pertaining to the parish of Balfron are not held by the NRS but by Stirling Archives. However, I learned from the catalogue that they have been digitised and when I looked on Scotlands People they are indeed there.
Be aware of 2 key dates when you are using these resources;
- 1843 - Remember the words of caution given in relation to the Old Parish Registers above. The formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843 might have meant that any minister who chose to break away and form a new congregation by taking much of his flock with him, may also have appropriated the kirk session ledgers as well. This may mean the records get a bit mixed up, so there is nothing for it but to read through carefully and try to make sense of what you find.
- 1900 - If a volume covers a time period that strays into the 20th century, it will not be uploaded to Scotlands People even if it has been digitised. It may be available to view digitally at the relevant archive - you would be advised to check directly with them.
(c) Irish Geneaography - 2021
