How to trace your Scottish ancestors: records, websites and expert tips

Those of us with Scottish forebears are at an advantage when it comes to tracing our family history, writes professional genealogist Kirsty F. Wilkinson.

The statutory registers of births, marriages and deaths, which began in 1855, are far more detailed than equivalent records from other parts of the UK; the country has a largely centralised system of record-keeping; and the basic sources of statutory registers, censuses, parish registers and wills & testaments are all available online through the ScotlandsPeople website.

How do I start to find my Scottish ancestors?

Dr Bruce Durie gives us some advice on getting started with your Scottish ancestry search:

• Begin with someone who was alive around 1911 or 1901 as the main records are readily available to check back from that date (eg birth, marriage, death, census, wills & testaments, and valuation rolls) and work backwards.
   
• Never guess! Look for actual documents and do the research yourself.
   
• If you hit a log-jam, shelve it and work on another aspect, such as cousins. You'll be amazed how often that one piece of vital information comes from an unexpected direction.
   
• Scotland has an unparalleled set of online records for family history, accessible via pay-per-view credits. 
  Visit the Scotlands People website to get:
  • Baptisms, marriage banns and burials (Church of Scotland) from the mid-1500s to 1854. Plus some Catholic records 1703-1908
  • Statutory (Civil) births, marriages and deaths 1855-2012
  • Wills and Testaments 1513-1925
  • Censuses, every 10 years from 1841-1911
  • Coats of Arms registered or granted 1672-1909
  • Valuation Rolls (essentially, Heads of Households) – (19^th and early 20^th centuries)
     

• Scotlands Places has numerous more specialised records, such as Carriage Tax 1785-1798, Farm Horse Tax 1797-1798 and many more! Also detailed collections of maps and official records. Some records are free, some access is via a 3-month £15 subscription to the site.

Researching and understanding Scottish names

Surname spellings can change from one generation to the next, and were not fixed until fairly recently, writes Dr Durie.

Don’t fret over variants – a McKay is a MacKay is a M’Kay is a McCay is a Mackey is a Makee is a Makey, and all are derived from MacHugh (Gaelic, MacAoidh).

Forget everything you have heard or read about “Mc is Scottish and Mac is Irish” – it’s nonsense, and often both will be recorded as M’.

Scottish forenames: Remember too that in Scotland it's typical to call someone by a second or third forename, or by a diminutive - so the person you know as ‘Sandy Brown’ may have been christened ‘John Harold Alexander Brown.

Scottish clans

• Surnames can change – especially in the Highlands, it was common practice to adopt the surname of the local landowner or clan chief.
• Not everyone is in a Clan – the clan was a Highlands and Borders phenomenon, and Lowland families were never part of the clan structure. Bruce, for example, is not a Clan.
• Do not assume a Coat of Arms linked to your surname is yours – in Scotland, Arms are the legal property of one person at a time, heritable, and must be registered with or granted by the Lord Lyon.

Where can I find Scottish genealogy records?

Scotland's census

Scotland's census, as for that of England and Wales, was taken every ten years from 1841. The most recent census available to view at the time of writing is the 1911 Census, with the 1921 Census due for release in the second half of 2022. 

National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh has census records for all of Scotland, which are available via the Scotland’s People website and at the ScotlandsPeople centre in Edinburgh. Some libraries and record offices (for, example The Glasgow Mitchell) also offer online access to ScotlandsPeople.

 

Births, marriages and deaths for Scotland

Before the introduction of civil registration in 1855, churches were responsible for keeping a record of baptisms, marriages and burials. ScotlandsPeople have online and onsite access to digital version of church registers, in which such events were recorded.

After this date, civil registration came into being and statutory registers replaced those of the church. Again, these can be accessed via ScotlandsPeople. Find out more about searching these records in their statutory registers guide.

Scottish genealogy resources at archives and libraries

FamilySearch centres

The worldwide FamilySearch organisation has a network of Family History Centers around the world where people can trace their roots - and Scotland is home to a number of these. Type your location into 'find a Family History Center' at FamilySearch for your nearest one.

National Library of Scotland

Located on George IV Bridge in central Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland. Although the library is not a main location for original records, they do have a wealth of relevant material for both online and on-site researchers. The Introduction to Scottish Family History page summarises the many helpful collections and explains what each can be used for.

National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EW.

National Records of Scotland

The holdings at National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh include:

• registers of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships, dissolutions and adoptions
• Scottish government records from the 12th century to the present day
• records created by courts of law, churches, businesses, landed estates and other corporate bodies
• Scottish census enumeration books
• the National Health Service Central Register

Browse the research guides before your visit and explore the family history hub page for a gateway into the on-site and online resources available. You can book a seat to research at the ScotlandsPeopleCentre or Historical Search Room here (Covid-19 restrictions permitting) and National Records of Scotland also has family history research centres at Kilmarnock, Alloa, Hawick, Inverness and Glasgow.

National Records of Scotland, General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY

Scottish Genealogy Society Library & Research Centre

The Scottish Genealogy Society Library is run by volunteers and welcomes both members and visitors. Highlights include the largest monumental inscription collection in Scotland, over 4,000 family history books, and journals from all major Scottish family history societies.

Scottish Genealogy Society, 15 Victoria Street, Edinburgh EH1 2JL.

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Best websites for Scottish family history

Scottish records on Ancestry

Ancestry has millions of Scottish records, including:

• Baptisms 1564 onwards
• Census & electoral rolls
• Marriages, death & burials
• Emigration records

Scottish records on FindMyPast

FindMyPast has millions of Scottish records, including census and employment records, as well as in its birth, marriage, and death records. Learn if your ancestor was in the military with the military service and conflict records.

Scottish records on National Records of Scotland

National Records of Scotland collections include: 

• registers of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, civil partnerships, dissolutions and adoptions
• Scottish government records from the 12th century to the present day
• records created by courts of law, churches, businesses, landed estates and other corporate bodies
• Scottish census enumeration books
• the National Health Service Central Register

Use the research guides to help you determine which records you need.

Scottish resources at the National Library of Scotland

National Library of Scotland has an unrivalled collection of online Scottish maps, including Ordnance Survey maps, County maps, military surveys, and historic maps produced by some of the country's finest mapmakers.

Browse the estate and town maps for a window into the places where your ancestors lived and use the side-by-side viewer to compare maps across the years.

Also available at the National Library of Scotland, Scottish Post Office Directories covers the years 1773 to 1911, with more than 700 directories to explores. These indexed and digitised directories show where and when a person was working and how he or she earned a living.

ScotlandsPlaces

A free online collection that comprises thousands of records including

• Maps
• Photographs
• Tax rolls
• Ordnance Survey name books
• Archaeological records 

Scottish Archive Network

Although no longer an active project, Scottish Archive Network is nonetheless a valuable online archive and is still maintained as a record of a project that aimed to 'revolutionise access to Scotland's archives by providing a single electronic catalogue to the holdings of more than 50 Scottish archives'.

The online catalogue allows you to access information relating to more than 20,000 collections from 52 archives.

Scottish Handwriting

Offering online tuition to anyone who uses historic documents, Scottish Handwriting is perfect for anyone who's traced their family back beyond the age of civil registration. Try the paleography poser and problem solver to put your new-found skills to the test.

Scottish Indexes

This free to use website is run by genealogists Emma and Graham Maxwell, who also run free online conferences featuring family historians from around Scotland and further afield.

Scottish Indexes includes an index of thousands of family history records, with regular additions to the database. There are currently 14 record sets, each of which has its own learning zone, with a total of 1 million records featured, including mental health records, a criminal record database and the register of sasines.

The Statistical Accounts of Scotland

The Statistical Accounts of Scotland is an online service run by the University of Edinburgh that allows online access to what has been described by Rosalind Mitchison as 'the most frequently quoted of all Scottish historical sources', covering the years 1791 to 1845.

The printed sets of the First and Second Statistical Accounts are among the most widely consulted sources in library collections both in Scotland and elsewhere, yet printed sets are not widely available. The accounts cover parish reports for the whole of Scotland, with topics including agriculture, education, trades, religion and social customs.

Where to find records for the Scottish counties

This helpful guide at ScotlandsPeople explains how the country was divided up, with 34 counties before 1889. National Library of Scotland also has a useful history of Scotland's counties, as well as the burgh system.

Scotland's Criminal Database

For many of us, family history is about more than collecting names and dates. We want to uncover our family stories. You can do exactly that using Scotland's Criminal Database on www.scottishindexes.com.

Even if our ancestors spent just one night in prison, we can learn a lot about them from criminal records. For example, the census may tell us our ancestor was born in Ireland. A prison register, though, may tell you exactly where in Ireland. A birth certificate gives you essential names and dates but a prison register may tell you about the scars or tattoos your ancestor had. 

Scottish Indexes are also indexing court records that can reveal fascinating details. We may find the evidence presented at court or a witness statement given by one of our ancestors. The database also includes victims of crime, so it’s not all about finding criminal ancestors. 

Scotland's Criminal Database is free to search, with no login required. The search features are comprehensive and user-friendly, allowing you to use wildcards and ‘alternative surnames’ to increase the chances of finding your ancestors. This is just one of the record sets on Scottish Indexes that open up historical records and add detail to your family story. 

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Societies to help you research your Scottish ancestors

Anglo Scots Family History Society is based in Manchester, England and exists to help members in Scotland to find their ancestral family in Manchester and to help its members in Manchester to trace their ancestors back to Scotland. It runs regular events and issues a quarterly journal.

Association of Scottish Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (ASGRA) is the only accrediting body for professional genealogists in Scotland. Its members undertake research for family and local historians, authors, business organisations and legal firms. You can use its website to find a genealogist to carry out research on your behalf.

The Federation of Family History Societies has been representing family historians since 1984 and is a hub for more than 160 member organisations. Its Find A Society section allows you to search for your area of interest,

The Scottish Genealogy Society has Edinburgh headquarters which are open to the public, and runs a series of classes and visits to archives. Members are welcome to visits its library and from here, can also access the databases of subscription sites such as Ancestry and FindMyPast.

The Scottish Record Society is one of Scotland's oldest historical societies, and is dedicated to publishing calendars, indexes and texts of historical records. 

The Scottish Association of Family History Societies (SAFHS) is your gateway to dozens of member family history societies across Scotland, as well as national and regional societies.

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Ten ways to overcome problems when researching Scottish ancestors 

With records starting in the 1500s, it’s easy to imagine you will be able to trace your family back several centuries with just a few clicks of a mouse. But, as anyone who has researched their family tree has found out, things aren’t always that simple.

Kirsty F. Wilkinson details some of the reasons you may struggle to find records of your Scottish ancestors, and how you can overcome these obstacles.

Spelling variations

You may be sure you’re a Macdonald and not a McDonald, and that your mother was a Thompson, not a Thomson, but as you go further back in time you will inevitably find your ancestors recorded under a whole host of spellings. Some of these are fairly simple variations but others require some lateral thinking. You might find your Thompsons records as Thomesoune in early records, or perhaps they were originally McCombies (a Gaelic surname often Anglicised as Thomson).

It’s not just surnames that can cause problems. Great Aunt Jessie’s birth may have been recorded as Janet, and your great-grandfather Peter may also have been known as Patrick.

Common names

Common names may be less likely to be spelled incorrectly than unusual ones but they can still cause difficulties for family historians. It may be hard to identify records of an ancestor among dozens of people with the same name and in a parish where one particular surname predominated there could easily be multiple couples with similar names, all having children baptised around the same time, making it difficult to know which family are yours.

Errors in records

You might expect that official records will provide accurate information about your ancestors but that isn’t always the case. It could simply be a clerical error or the result of an ancestor being less than honest (perhaps to conceal their true age or cover up an illegitimate birth).

Even when there was no deliberate intent to deceive, a person providing information could easily become muddled or guess at details they were unsure of, especially at an emotional time such as registering the death of a relative.

Transcription mistakes

Even if a record provides accurate information about an ancestor, it may be impossible to find if it has been transcribed incorrectly. Damaged pages, poor handwriting and unfamiliarity with local names can all cause errors to appear in the indexes researchers rely on to locate records of their family.

Missing parish registers

One of the main sources for tracing ancestors prior to 1855 are the parish registers of the Church of Scotland. The earliest of these begins in 1553 but some parishes only have surviving records starting in the early 1800s. If you can’t find an ancestor in online indexes, it’s worth checking what records exist for the parish where they lived.

Even when registers survive, they may contain large gaps, have been damaged, or simply not provide an accurate record of everyone living in the parish. For example, a stamp duty imposed on parish register entries in 1783 to 1794 led to an under-recording of events during this period.

Religious non-conformity

Not everyone was a member of the Church of Scotland and one of the reasons a family may be missing from parish registers is because they attended a different religious congregation.

There were a number of other Presbyterian churches which broke away from the Church of Scotland at different times (known as Secessionist churches), as well as other religious groups including Episcopalians, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists and Jews. Records from these other religious denominations were often less well kept than the parish registers but some are available online.

Illegitimacy

In the late 1850s around 9% of babies in Scotland were born outside of marriage so it is not surprising that many of us should uncover an illegitimate ancestor in our family tree. The most common problem this causes is identifying the father, who may not be named on a birth record, although tracing the mother can also sometimes be difficult if the child was brought up outside the family.

Migration

We tend to think people in the past lived in the same area all their lives but your ancestors may have been far more mobile than you expect. Clearances, which occurred in both the Highlands and Lowlands, forced people off agricultural land, while the growth of mining and manufacturing attracted them to the industrial towns of the central belt where work was plentiful.

Many Scots left for new lives overseas, while Irish, Italians, Lithuanians and others arrived here. These migrations severed links with home and family and can cause problems for family historians as records often don’t provide detailed information on places of origin.

Searching only online

Scotland has a wonderful collection of online resources for researching family history but there are many more records which are not available on the internet.

The National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh and local archives throughout the country hold thousands of records which can help you trace your family history and learn more about your ancestors’ lives. These include records of local administration, including poor relief and health records, and the papers of landed families and their estates.

Making assumptions

Sometimes the problem isn’t with the records themselves but with the way we approach them.

Maybe you believe a story that’s been handed down through the family without checking all the facts. Perhaps you focus only on one county without considering that an ancestor could have come from elsewhere. Or maybe you search too narrow a date range for an ancestor’s birth without remembering that their age could have been recorded incorrectly later in life. All of these could prevent you from finding the record you are seeking.

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Researching your Scottish family history before 1855

1855 is an important year in Scottish Family History, writes National Records of Scotland Archivist Veronica Schreuder.

On 1 January 1858 it became compulsory for everyone in Scotland to register every major life event (birth, death or marriage) with the local registrar.

Prior to this date, the onus fell to the local parish church to oversee these records, with the parish minister or session clerk often taking responsibility for noting names, dates and other details. These volumes are known today as Old Parish Registers, or OPRs. Left to personal preference as to what to document and the amount of information recorded, the quality of these registers vary from parish to parish.

In the Dunning OPR, in 1764, for example, it is noted:

'Any person that wants a child's name in any of the three preceding pages may scarcely expect to find it in the proper place. They being wrote by Mr King, late schoolmaster depute here without any regularity or order.'

And, in different handwriting and ink: 'The above ill-natured ungentlemanlike observation was written by Mr James Whyte and stands as one mark of his own distinguished Idiotism.' (Dunning, 1764; OPR 350/1, page 119)

Whilst the earliest surviving OPR is a baptism dating from Errol, Perthshire, in 1553, many parish records do not begin until the 19th century as many were lost or destroyed over the centuries. 

Despite some of these limitations, the OPRs are still a useful and worthwhile record set to explore. It may be the case, however, that they do not have the information you need. So, what other records could you consult to help locate your Scottish ancestors?

The Census

In the early 1800s, enumerators were asked to provide statistical returns for the 1801 to 1831 censuses. In doing so, some kept lists of householders along with other details – notably occupations.

Most of the surviving pre-1841 census entries are found in the kirk session records with a few in the OPRs. A list of those known to contain census information can be found in the census records guide on the NRS website, which also includes a guidance about pre-1841 census records held by local archives in Scotland and published transcriptions of pre-1841 census and population records.  

The census, as we think of it today, has taken place every 10 years from 1841 with the exception of 1941 (due to the Second World War) and 1921 (which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic).

Two of these, 1841 and 1851, may be helpful to you for finding family pre-1855.  

The 1841 census is the earliest to provide details for the whole population. Whilst it provides fewer details than later censuses, you will still find the name and occupation of each person (but not their relation to the head of the household), the ages of each person rounded down to the nearest five years for anyone over 15, and limited information about their place of birth. 

The 1851 census provides information about the street or road and number of the house, name of each person in the house, their relationship to the head of the family, their marital status, age, sex, rank, profession or occupation, birthplace (town and county) and whether they were blind or deaf and dumb. Although exact ages are recorded, these should be treated with caution as some people were unsure of their birth date. Find out more information in the census returns guide on the ScotlandsPeople website. 

Kirk sessions

Scotland was a Catholic country until 1560 when the Scottish Reformation established the Presbyterian Church as the state church. A new system was introduced to run church affairs, education and poor relief after this date overseen by a hierarchy of church courts from the General Assembly at the head, descending through the synods, presbyteries, and kirk sessions.

Find out more in the church court records guide on the ScotlandsPeople website.

These records are very useful for family and local history research as they contain details of key events in communities across the country, usually in the form of evidence in church court cases. In this period, cases could involve paternity of children and irregular marriages.

Functions later taken over by local government, including school education and poor relief, registering births, death and marriages and disciplining parishioners for what would now be termed anti-social behaviour, were also managed by the church. They also record accounts of exceptional events such as outbreaks of epidemics, crop failures and extreme weather. 

For family historians, these records are often the first step away from sources (such as registers of births and census returns) which are not indexed intensively by personal names. The records can give details of births, marriages, burials and the movement of people from one part of Scotland to another. To find your family member, keep in mind that you first need to know which parish they belonged to and then find out whether its records have survived.

The records of most interest for genealogists are the minutes of the kirk sessions, which typically contain a detailed and often colourful record of the discipline the minister and kirk elders handed out to errant parishioners for offences such as drunkenness, swearing, breaking the Sabbath, quarrelling and sexual misdemeanours.

The kirk sessions may also provide information about the inhabitants of the parish. For example, the kirk session minutes for Dallas, Morayshire, includes a list of the population of the parish from June 1811. It is very unusual for early census records to include children, making the 1811 census of Dallas one of the best of the known surviving records. Each entry includes address, name, rank (this can be occupation, marital status, lodger) and age.

The kirk session was the primary body that provided poor relief to members of the parish. It also sought to determine who the fathers of children born outside marriage were, in order to confirm whether the parish was financially responsible for supporting the mother and child, if the father could not be identified.

Wills and testaments

Wills and testaments can be found in the records of the commissary and sheriff courts and are very useful for family historians. Testaments (the legal document drawn up after a person has died) provide information about how people lived as they include an inventory of the deceased’s property. This may be a brief summary valuation of the goods involved, or it can be a long list of individual items and valuations.

Depending on the means of the individual, they can tell us how someone dressed, furnished their home, conducted their affairs, the tools of their trade, what land they owned, the crops they grew and, in the 19th century, which public utilities they invested in and which railway companies they owned shares in. 

A will is a document drawn up by an individual wishing to settle his or her affairs prior to death and sets out instructions for the disposal of their possessions. They can potentially tell us names of family members, their relationships and details of everyday possessions, as well as details of the debts they owed at the time of their death.  

You can search for over 611,000 wills and testaments on ScotlandsPeople covering the period 1513 to 1925.

Highland and Island Emigration Records

The Highland and Island Emigration Society was a voluntary organisation set up in 1852 by private subscription with the aim of alleviating destitution in the Highlands by promoting and assisting emigration.

Between 1852 and 1857, the Society assisted 4919 men, women and children to leave Western Scotland for Australia. Their details were recorded in the Society’s passenger lists, which are one of the few sources for emigration held by the National Records of Scotland (reference HD4/5) and are free to view. If your ancestors left Scotland in the mid-1850s, it may be worthwhile searching for them in these lists. 

These are a number of suggestions for how to further your research using records found on ScotlandsPeople. For further information about our records, including other historical records held by National Records of Scotland, consult our handbook ‘Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors’, which can be purchased for the first time in paperback and e-book versions through our publishers, Birlinn.

 

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Kirsty F. Wilkinson's book Finding Your Scottish Ancestors: Techniques for Solving Genealogy Problems discusses how to overcome these and other common issues in Scottish family history research and provides the tools researchers need to track down even the most elusive forebears.

Dr Bruce Durie is a professional genealogist and heraldist living and working in Scotland, and is Shennachie to the Chief of Durie, to COSCA and to the Order of Alba.

Veronica Schreuder is an Archivist at National Records of Scotland.