Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

If you need some help tracing your elusive Scottish ancestors the May ‘Then & Now’ competition prize is just what you need.

This month we are giving away two hours of professional genealogy help in the National Records of Scotland and we are also including a copy of the book ‘Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors’. This book should be on the desk of every Scottish genealogist! It will help you learn why records were created, how they have been kept and what information you can learn from them, it is the official guide for the National Records of Scotland. We hope that this book, kindly donated by the National Records of Scotland, together with our time will help you get over a brick wall in your family history and propel your research forward!

To enter find an old Scottish photo, recreate it and email both photos to me. To see full terms and conditions see our previous blog post: www.scottishgenealogyblog.blogspot.co.uk

Finding Birth, Marriage and Death Records Before 1855

From 1855 onwards, finding records of births, marriages and deaths could not be much easier than it is in Scotland. All historical records are available to view on the Scotland’s People website (at a fee).

For the period prior to 1855, the Scotland’s People website also has the Church of Scotland Old Parochial Registers (OPRs) that have survived. The question is this: if you can’t find a birth, marriage or death in the OPRs, does that mean that no record exists?

The answer is a resounding NO! There are many registers lying unindexed which could hold the key to progressing your family tree.

Our new Learning Zone section ‘Finding Birth, Marriage and Death Records Before 1855’ has been designed to explain the situation and help you find the records you need.

Please let me know if you have a question which is not covered in the Learning Zone.

Using Marriage Contracts to Trace Your Family Tree

Marriage contracts are just one type of deed that can be very useful when you are tracing your family tree. As well as detailing the persons getting married they frequently mention other family members including parents, siblings and sometimes even more distant family members. They were usually drawn up by families who had land or wealth of some kind. If your family worked on the land rather than owned the land you are unlikely to find a marriage contract. 

There was no legal obligation to register a marriage contract, it was a private document. As a fee would be involved in registering the document it was often only done if and when it became necessary. For example, a marriage contract could be dated 12 July 1735 but only registered on 20 December 1769; as you can see in this entry on our website index. 

Finding these marriage contracts without an index can be challenging and time-consuming. That is why we have decided to begin indexing sections of the Register of Deeds that are currently un-indexed. We hope this project will uncover many genealogical gems that will help you and others research your family tree.

So far we have indexed 1,072 entries… there’s a long way to go! We are indexing these under the ‘Sponsor an Index’ initiative: can you help? From just £7 you can be involved in getting Scotland’s historic records online: http://scottishindexes.com/sponsor.aspx