Scotland:- Church Records

• Registers of the Church of Scotland prior to 1855 may be consulted at the General Register Office in Edinburgh (see also the GRO tutorial). Copies can also be seen at LDS family history centres around the world. Church of Scotland records after that date, as well as records of a number of non-conformist churches (e.g. Catholic, Episcopalian, Free Church) are usually held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh. Baptisms and marriages in the Church of Scotland parish registers before 1855 have been indexed and these indexes may be consulted at the General Register Office in Edinburgh, in LDS family history centres around the world (on microfiche or on CD-ROM), and also online through Scotland's People, which also provides digitised images of records (for a fee). There is also a national project underway to index burials before 1855, across Scotland.

• List of the Old Parochial Registers. "This list is based on the printed Detailed List of the Old Parochial Registers of Scotland which was first published in 1872. It provides a basic reference guide for identifying the dates for the births/baptisms, marriages/proclamations of marriage and deaths/burials in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs) held by the General Register Office for Scotland." Three appendices are also provided which list: (1) Church of Scotland records in the National Archives of Scotland (formerly Scottish Record Office) containing pre-1855 birth, death and marriage entries. (2) Kirk session and other material found in the OPRs. (3) Miscellaneous records containing entries from Non-Conformist churches relevant to the OPRs.

  Information about surviving pre-1855 Church of Scotland parish registers will also be given on individual parish pages in GENUKI (where available).

  (For a printed guide to the above see "The Parishes, Registers & Registrars of Scotland" edited by S.M. Spiers and published by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies. This also contains parish maps for each county and a list of addresses for local Register Offices (see the Civil Registration section.)

• The Kirk Session of a parish consists of the minister of the parish and the elders of the congregation. It looks after the general wellbeing of the congregation and, particularly in centuries past, parochial discipline. Most Kirk Session records are held in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh and can be fascinating. For more information on this see Anne Gordon's Candie for the Foundling published by the Pentland Press in 1992. ISBN 1 872795 75 7 (720 pages).

• Notes on Quaker ancestors in Scotland provided by the Quaker FHS.

• Scottish Catholic Archives at Columba House, Edinburgh holds some church records and has information about others. Most dioceses have deposited their historical records at Columba House, and retain only current records. Much material from Scots Catholic Colleges overseas is at Columba House. The Archdiocese of Glasgow and Diocese of Paisley retain their historic records. At Columba House are Status Animarum from the early 19th Century (e.g. Glasgow 1808) - lists of all Catholics and in some counties (mainly in North East Scotland, e.g. Morayshire) lists of everyone. The National Archives of Scotland has photocopies of all pre-1855 Roman Catholic parish registers.

• The L.D.S. (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) have now provided online search facilities for the I.G.I. (International Genealogical Index). As well as the general search facility, there is also a Custom Search page allowing more refined searches. Hugh Wallis has provided a search facility which greatly simplifies searching by batch number. See also Finding L.D.S. Batch Numbers.

• Scottish Jewish Archive Centre is centralising Jewish records, building databases, and recording burials in Jewish cemeteries (or sections of cemeteries). Numbers of records are quite small.

• Methodist records are in a number of archives. Generally records of rural churches went to university archives, records of city churches went to local authority archives.

• Episcopal Church records also are in a variety of archives. It is best to search at the National Register of Archives to locate them. Some are at the National Archives of Scotland.
• Green Marriages is a searchable database provided by Achievements Ltd. "After 1753, when English law forbad irregular marriages, a number of people who objected to marrying in a church wed in border centres where the couple's own consent to marriage before witnesses was legal under Scottish Law. Gretna is the most famous of these. Marriages were conducted by self appointed ministers at the border Toll booths along the few roads into Scotland." The database has details of 4,500 marriages from 1795 to 1895. Gretna area web site describes the history, and modern facilities for Gretna marriages. Irregular Border and Scottish Runaway Marriages is extended by Ronald Nicholson from lists prepsred by others, and is held on the GRO Scotland site.