Death Records – Records of undertakers and monumental masons

The records of firms of undertakers and monumental masons in Scotland have not survived in any great quantity. The whereabouts of the records of the famous Glasgow firm of Mossman & Co (apart from a job book of William Mossman’s for 1835-9 in Glasgow City Archives) remains a mystery. Wylie & Lochhead Ltd, Glasgow’s leading firm of undertakers between the 1830s and the Second World War, are held partly in private hands, partly by Glasgow City Archives and partly (among the records of the House of Fraser) by Glasgow University Archive Services.

For research into the burial of an individual, the records of undertakers and monumental masons cannot be recommended as a likely source of information.

For those researching the history of the firms themselves, the best source for known records which are held privately and not in an archives service is the National Register of Archives Scotland.

Information about the location of records held by archives services and community archives in Scotland may be found on Your Scottish Archives; or on Discovery (please note that Discovery includes records from all parts of the UK)