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                  Where should I look for information about, or records of, churchyard watching societies?

                  Look first in published parish histories. The best place to look for these is normally the local studies library for the area concerned. The best place to look for references to churchyard watching societies in original records would be either in kirk session records, heritors’ records, and private records, although in each of these references are few and far between.

                  There are occasional references to watching societies in kirk session minutes. Kirk session minutes have been digitised and are available to browse free of charge on the ScotlandsPeople website (there are fees for downloading). The National Records of Scotland (NRS) online catalogue shows the location of the original records, including those held by local archives services, along with any access conditions. Several hours might be required to read through the minutes, looking for references to watching societies.

                  Heritors’ minutes and accounts may also contain records of watching societies. For example, the records of the Heritors of Liberton parish contain an advertisement for a watchman (ref: HR153/1/1). Almost all surviving heritors’ minutes are held by the NRS. Although heritors’ minutes and accounts are not usually as voluminous as kirk session minutes, they also require a lot of research time, in searching through unindexed volumes.

                  There is a small chance that information about watching societies in a particular area may survive among the records of families, estates and legal firms from that area deposited at the NRS or at local authority or university archives. For example in a bundle of 39 items in the Strathern & Blair WS collection in the NRS (ref: GD.314/114) there is material on the Traquair Churchyard Waiting Society, later the Traquair Watch House Society 1821-1879. Advice should be sought from staff at the NRS and local archives as to which collections should be checked.