Where should I look for information about, or records of, mortcloths? 

References to payments for mortcloths (along with payments for coffins or digging the grave of named persons may appear in kirk session minutes and accounts, heritors’ minutes and accounts, and old parish registers. By recording a payment for a mortcloth, these may provide the approximate date of death for the deceased. 

There are occasional references to mortcloths 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 mortcloths.  

Heritors’ minutes and accounts may also contain records of mortcloths. 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.  

Prior to 1855 the principal source of information about deaths in Scotland is the collection of Old Parish Registers (OPRs) of baptisms, marriages and burials held by NRS. For more information about OPRs and how to search for these online, go to the ScotlandsPeople website.