Finding your ancestor in the records
Once you have discovered some basic facts about your family tree, these can indicate other collections of historic records which may give additional information on your family’s history. Depending on what your ancestors did for a living, whether they emigrated or how they travelled, further avenues for investigation may be open to you.
My Ancestor was an emigrant
Scots have been emigrating since medieval times to other parts of Europe, and further afield (perhaps even to North America from as early as 1000 AD). In the 17th century many Scots took advantage of new opportunities in Ulster, the Americas, Africa and the East Indies, while many criminals and rebels (of widely different political and religious opinions) were banished to the North American colonies until 1776 and to Australia from the 1790s until 1868.
Over 2 million Scots emigrated between 1821 and 1915, helped by steamship companies, railways, and emigration societies. The popular image of the emigrant Scot is of a refugee from the Highland clearances, but emigrants left all areas of Scotland: Highland and Lowland; urban and rural. Poverty and land hunger account for a high proportion of emigrants, but many skilled tradesmen emigrated temporarily to take advantage of high wages in growing American towns. It is estimated that, by the end of the 19th century, a third of emigrants returned to Scotland sooner or later. Among the most famous emigrants were the industrialist Andrew Carnegie and the author Robert Louis Stevenson. The Your Scottish Archives Knowledge base includes tips on tracing Scottish emigrants, how to use emigration society records, and more about the history of Scottish emigration here
My Ancestor was a passenger on a ship
Ships’ passenger lists were drawn up by shipping companies to identify passengers on particular voyages. The information contained in passenger lists varies, depending on the recording habits of the company involved. Tracking down passenger lists for specific voyages or the names of individual passengers can involve time-consuming and painstaking research. In terms of ease of access, the whereabouts of a particular passenger list should be sought primarily from the relevant record office in the country of arrival. Very few passenger lists survive in Scotland.
Tracking down the list or ‘manifest’ handed in to the port authority at the country of arrival is your best chance of locating a passenger list. For vessels arriving in countries outside the UK you should check the relevant record office in the country concerned. Details on those in North America, Australia, and New Zealand are given in the answers to Frequently Asked Questions below. For vessels arriving in the UK from non-European ports, The National Archives (TNA) in London holds passenger lists for the period 1878-1960. TNA also holds passenger lists for vessels leaving the UK for destinations outside Europe for the period 1890-1960. They are not indexed, many are in a fragile condition, and require a lot of research time. More information on using passenger lists, and emigration to America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is available in the Knowledge Base.
My Ancestor was a passport holder
British passports, in the modern sense, were introduced in 1915. Before this there were few practical restrictions on individuals who wished to travel abroad, provided they could afford to do so. Documents similar to passports were issued by the Scottish crown (prior to the union of crowns in 1603) and by burghs, senior churchmen and noblemen. These were letters of introduction or safe conduct for individuals (mainly aristocrats or their agents) travelling in Europe, sometimes on official business. In general, those emigrating permanently before 1915 did not require passports. More information on finding out about an ancestor who may have used a passport, or using passport records in general, is available here.
My ancestor was transported
Many Scottish criminals and rebels (of widely different political and religious opinions) were banished to North American colonies and to Australia. In the 17th century many Covenanters were banished to the North American colonies. Their descendants were joined by Jacobites captured in the 1715 and 1745 rebellions. Transportation to North America continued until 1776. Between the 1790s and 1868 many Scottish criminals, including radicals from the 1820 uprising, were transported to Australia. Finding information about the trial, journey and arrival of transportees involves searching through various archives and libraries in Scotland and abroad, which is described in more detail in the Your Scottish Archives Knowledge Base. There, you can also find information on tracing the records of someone transported to Australia, New Zealand or North America.
My ancestor was a school pupil
The key date for researching schooling in Scotland is 1872. Before this schools were run by churches, charities and burghs. Many families, who could afford to do so, paid for the services of private tutors. Information about the schooling of the vast majority of Scottish children in this period does not exist. In 1872 a system of public schools, controlled by elected school boards and funded partly by local rates and partly by pupil fees, operated in Scotland. School admission records and log books survive from many schools and are usually held by local authority archives. Take a look at these articles on the history of Education in Scotland, how School Admission Registers were made and using School Registers for genealogy, and finding School Log Books to find out more about using school records for your family history research. The articles also offer guidance on where to find records for pupils attending school prior to 1872, and public or private schools after this time, finding school photographs, and tracing when individual schools were in operation.
My Ancestor was a university student
Student records are usually held by the institution they attended and accessible for research through the archives, subject to data protection restrictions. Matriculation (enrolment) records, graduation records, class lists, examination results and other detailed information may be available. However, until 1858 it was not a requirement for students to matriculate or graduate and many students simply attended classes without doing so. Some lists of students or graduates are available online. For details, look at the websites of the relevant university or higher education institution. In some cases, University Archives will also hold records for college and student societies. If you believe your ancestor may have participated, for example, in sport, music or drama, it is worth asking about records of student societies. Minutes for such societies often include a full list of paid members at the start of each academic semester; this can be a good place to start when looking to see if your ancestor was part of a society.
Scotland had five medieval universities – St Andrews, Glasgow, King’s College, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Marsichal College, Aberdeen. Technical colleges developed in the 19th century, most notably in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The 20th century saw the proliferation of technical colleges, central institutions and other higher education establishments in many Scottish towns. In the 1960s new universities were created at Dundee, Edinburgh (Heriot Watt), Glasgow (Strathclyde) and Stirling. For more information, see this article on the records of Higher Education establishments in Scotland.
My Ancestor was a schoolteacher
The key date for researching schooling in Scotland is 1872. Before this schools were run by churches, charities and burghs. It is possible to find information about schoolteachers prior to 1872 in the records of the bodies which ran the school, but this can be time-consuming. From 1873 onwards the principal source of information about teachers’ careers is the school log book which was kept by the headteachers of each school. Most surviving school log books are now held by local authority archives services. From the mid-20th century, teachers were registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and its predecessors and the records of these bodies are held by the National Records of Scotland; more details are provided in the Knowledge Base article on Education and School Log Books.
My Ancestor was an Islander
Scotland includes hundreds of islands. Over 100 are inhabited now and many more have been inhabited in the past. Because birth, marriage and death registers, census returns, and many other historical records are arranged by parish and county, you need to be able to work out which parish and county the island was in.
There are other problems with islands. For example, an island might have been known by several different names in the past, or there may be several variations of the name, or there may be several islands with identical or similar names.
To find out which county and parish an island was located in, go to the guide in ScotlandsPlaces https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/places
Further details on finding valuation rolls for Islands, and on Island councils is available on the Knowledge Base.
My Ancestor was a burgess
Burgesses were merchants or craftsmen who owned property in burghs and were allowed to trade in burghs free of charge. They could obtain these rights by inheritance, by marriage, by purchase, or by the gift of a burgh. Burghs were essentially urban settlements which enjoyed trading privileges from medieval times until 1832, and which regulated their own affairs to a greater or lesser extent until the abolition of Scottish burghs in 1975. By 1707 three types of burgh existed: royal burghs, burghs of regality and burghs of barony; more information on burgesses is available here.
If you think your ancestor was a burgess, there are a range of records that you can search for details about them, such as burgess rolls, burgh court books, apprentice rolls and guild rolls. Most burgesses were members of specific craft or merchant guilds which also maintained records of members and apprentices. The Scottish Record Society has published rolls and indexes of several burghs and these are available online at https://www.scottishrecordsociety.org.uk/publications/old-series/ The records themselves are mostly held by local authority archives services but some may still be held by craft guilds.
My ancestor was a rate-payer
Rate-payers were recorded in valuation rolls from 1855 until 1974. Valuation rolls have been compiled in Scotland since at least the early 17th century, but, until 1855, they listed only the leading landowners in each parish.
From 1855 until 1974 Assessors’ offices in each county and royal burgh in Scotland produced annual valuation rolls, listing almost all occupied properties in each parish and burgh. The rolls include the description of the property, what kind of property it was (e.g. dwelling house, shop, warehouse, hospital etc), the name of the owner, the name of the tenant (if the property was let), and, in some cases, the name of other occupants (if the property was sub-let, for example). Until the mid-20th century the rolls also included the occupation of most tenants and occupiers. Using Valuation Rolls for family history, and the difference between valuation rolls and voters’ rolls, is discussed in more detail on the Knowledge Base.
Valuation rolls for the whole of Scotland are held by the National Records of Scotland from 1855 onwards. Some local authority archives and local studies libraries hold less comprehensive runs of rolls for particular counties and burghs; usually from about 1890 onwards, but in some cases from earlier.
My Ancestor was a house owner
There are several key sources of information relating to house occupancy and ownership. In Scotland censuses were taken every 10 years and household surveys, or returns, listing individuals in each household are accessible from 1841 until 1901. Census returns are held by ScotlandsPeople https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ but microfilm copies of the censuses up to 1891 can be consulted throughout Scotland in local studies libraries, family history societies and genealogical centres. Postal directories are not archival records in the true sense, but they are among the most frequently consulted items in archive search rooms in Scotland, both by archivists and researchers, and they make a very useful back-up to original records, such as valuation rolls, maps and census returns.
From 1855 until 1974 Assessors’ offices in each county and royal burgh in Scotland produced annual valuation rolls, listing almost all occupied properties in each parish and burgh. The rolls include the description of the property, what kind of property it was (e.g. dwelling house, shop, warehouse, hospital etc), the name of the owner, and information about any tenants or occupiers. Valuation rolls for the whole of Scotland are held by the National Records of Scotland from 1855 onwards. Some local authority archives and local studies libraries hold less comprehensive runs of rolls for particular counties and burghs; usually from about 1890 onwards, but in some cases from earlier.
For further details on property records, valuation rolls, and postal directories are available in the Knowledge Base, which also looks at the question of how to use valuation rolls for family history, names appearing in a postal directory, and properties which do not appear in post office directories.
My Ancestor was a landowner
The most frequently used records of landownership in Scotland are:
- Sasine registers
- Valuation rolls
- Title deeds and inventories
- Tax rolls
- Estate papers
The majority of property transactions in Scotland from 1617 until the late 20th century were sent by lawyers to be registered in centrally held registers known collectively as the register of sasines. Where a family owned an estate, the surviving records of property management are referred to as estate papers, and many collections of estate papers are either in archive offices or still held privately by the families that created them. A further type of property record which is frequently used is the tax roll. Taxation in Scotland became well organised and better recorded from the 1690s onwards, and most taxes were based on property ownership. Most records of taxation in Scotland are held by the National Records of Scotland. A special type of tax roll was the valuation roll, on which each property’s rental value and annual tax was estimated, and the name and address of the owner and tenant recorded. Further information on land ownership and its records is available here.
For more details about the early register of sasines (before 1781) see the fact sheet on sasines on the National Records of Scotland website. For details on further key archival records offering evidence of property, see also the Knowledge Base entries on Valuation Rolls and on Sasine Abridgements. For more information about tax records see the entry on taxation in the National Records of Scotland website.
My ancestor was a police officer
Police forces, in the modern sense, came into existence in Scotland from 1800 onwards in burghs and counties. Throughout the later 19th century and the 20th century many burgh constabularies were absorbed by county or city constabularies, and several constabularies amalgamated. In 1975 all county, burgh and amalgamated constabularies were replaced by eight police forces (Strathclyde, Lothian & Borders, Grampian, Tayside, Fife, Central, Northern, and Dumfries and Galloway), supervised by regional council police committees. These eight forces were amalgamated into Police Scotland in 2013.
Historical records relating to policing come in various categories. Local authority archives hold some and some are retained by police forces themselves. In general, a wider variety of records survive for the larger forces, especially the city constabularies, while, for some smaller constabularies, particularly those absorbed by larger forces, little survives. More information on the history of policing in Scotland is available here, and on finding and using police records here. Information is also provided on finding records relating to an individual police officer, and on special constables.
My Ancestor was referred to as “a pauper”
When looking for records relating to an individual pauper in Scotland, the important date is 1845. Before 1845 the parish authorities responsible for the poor were kirk sessions and heritors. In many burghs there were town hospitals and poorhouses. From 1845 until 1930 the poor relief authority was the civil parish (parochial boards until 1894 and parish councils between 1894 and 1930). The key sources of information for genealogists searching for a pauper ancestor are: kirk session and heritors’ records (for the period prior to 1845), poor relief registers, parochial board/parish council minute books and poorhouse records (for the period 1845 to 1930). Records of individuals are subject to data protection legislation and will be closed for between 75 and 100 years. Several Knowledge Base articles provide further information on records for paupers in Scotland, the history of poor relief, and poorhouses.
My ancestor was a prisoner
If your ancestor was a prisoner in Scotland and you think prison records might contain useful information, you should firstly consider the difference between ‘remanding in custody’, where prison is a means of incarcerating those awaiting trial or punishment, and imprisonment as a judicial sentence. The latter is a relatively modern phenomenon. For further information, see the article on Prisons and Prisoners.
The modern prison system took shape in Scotland from 1839 onwards. Before 1839 the most important form of prison in Scotland consisted of cells in the tolbooths of burghs. Prisoners in these were usually held for short periods before trial, or between trial and punishment, or until a fine or debt was paid (imprisonment for civil debt was abolished in Scotland in 1880).
Historical Records relating to prisoners in Scotland fall into 3 main types: (a) warding and liberation books for burgh prisons; (b) prison registers, mainly for post-1839 prisons; and (c) Prisoner of War records.
(a) Warding and liberation books for burgh prisons before 1839 record the incarceration and release of individual prisoners with few other details. In most cases they are held by local authority archives and libraries. However, there are important exceptions (such as the warding and liberation records of Edinburgh tolbooth, held by the National Records of Scotland).
(b) The main series of prison registers is in the National Records of Scotland, among Home and Health Department records (HH21), but there are some others among Sheriff Court records. These mainly cover the period from the early 1800s onwards, and consist of registers maintained by over 49 prisons, generally containing name, date of admission, committing magistrate and court, age, height, where born, nationality, occupation, religion, health, offence, particulars of trial, sentence if convicted, and date liberated or removed.
(c) Since the 18th century Prisoners of War were the responsibility of government departments based in London and their records are primarily held by The National Archives in London.
Information on Burgh Prison Records and Modern Prison Records is also provided in the Knowledge Base.
My Ancestor was a church minister
The first sources to check for information about church ministers are the published biographical lists for the relevant denomination. Those for ministers of the Church of Scotland are known as Fasti and list the names of ministers under the congregation(s) they served, with brief biographical notes against their earliest entry. Similar information is found in the other published works and this can be followed up by researching the records of relevant congregations and church courts. Here is a list of the main books to use.
Watt, D E R & AL Murray, Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae medii aevi ad annum 1638 (Edinburgh: Scottish Record Society, 2003)
Scott, Hew, Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae : the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation 1-8 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1915-1950)
Lamb, John Alexander (ed) Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae 9 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1961)
MacDonald, Donald Farquhar MacLeod (ed) Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae 10 (Edinburgh: St Andrews Press, 1981)
MacDonald, Finlay A J (ed) Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae 11 (Edinburgh: T & T Clarke, 2000)
Ewing, William Annals of the Free Church of Scotland, 1843-1900 (Edinburgh: T & T Clarke, 1914)
Lamb, John Alexander The Fasti of the United Free Church of Scotland, 1900-1929 Edinburgh 1956
Scott, David Annals and Statistics of the Original Secession Church (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot, 1886)
Small, Robert, History of the Congregations of the United Presbyterian Church, 1733-1900 (Edinburgh: David Small, 1904)
Bertie, David M Scottish Episcopal Clergy, 1689-2000 (Edinburgh: T & T Clarke, 2000)
McNaughton, William D The Scottish Congregational Ministry, 1794-1993 (Glasgow: Congregational Union of Scotland, 1993)
You can find out about presbyterian kirk sessions in the Knowledge Base, as well as Session Records, where to find Kirk records, and how these are indexed.