and time of birth.
address where the child was born.
gender.
father’s name.
father’s occupation.
mother’s name and maiden name.
date of registration. Note that children were occasionally registered twice, especially if they were born some distance from home: this was technically incorrect but can be revealing, especially if the informants were different and gave subtly different information.
informant’s name and relationship (if any) to the child. This will usually be a parent, but may be another close relation, or occasionally a non-relation, depending on circumstances.
The Edinburgh artist Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) painted this depiction of The Bride at her Toilet on the Day of her Wedding, though not every woman would have had such a formal and elaborate wedding day, or have been able to afford the beautiful dresses shown in these old wedding photos.
It would be unwise to draw any inference from a non-relative being the informant.
birth records for 1855 alone show parents’ ages and places of birth, the date and place of the parents’ marriage, the number and gender (but not names) of any children they had already, and whether any of their children had died. This extra information does not appear between 1856 and 1860. From 1861 onwards just the date and place of the parents’ marriage was restored to the records.
The importance of the additional information given in 1855 and to a lesser extent from 1861 onwards is immense. It provides valuable genealogical information on people who lived before 1855, and the marriage details can be linked to pre-1855 OPRs. In all cases where the couple came from somewhere else, the place of the marriage can be invaluable for working out where that was – whether in Scotland or abroad. Many Irish Famine immigrants arrived already married and had children in Scotland: a record of the latter will name the country and often the exact place of marriage back in Ireland.
Marriages
Until 1929 (when the minimum age was raised to 16), boys could marry at 14 and girls at 12 provided they had parental consent. Marriages of such young people were rare, but they really did happen. Many marriage searches fail simply because people don’t search back far enough. If your female ancestor was born in 1850, then she could have married as early as 1862.
The old indexes showed males and females separately, though this is irrelevant when using the computerized indexes. The indexes show:
name of person marrying.
from 1929, the index reference to one party states the surname of the spouse too. In addition, between 1855 and 1863, brides are indexed under both their maiden name and their new married one.
registration district and reference number, that can be used for cross-referencing pre-1929.
The marriage records always show:
names of bride and groom.
occupations of both parties.
whether single, widow(er)ed or divorced.
ages of both parties. If there was a large age gap between the two parties, it was not unknown for one or both to lessen the difference by lying.
names and sometimes addresses of witnesses.
A certificate, issued in 1970, for the 1935 marriage of Frederick Crowley and Lillian Watt (courtesy of Mrs Moira Crowley).
names of parents of both parties, including maiden name of mothers. If a parent had died, the word ‘deceased’ will usually be added. Married mothers are shown with both married and maiden names (‘M.S.’ means ‘maiden surname’). If the person marrying was illegitimate, they might just state their mother’s name, but many concealed the fact by making up a father’s name and claiming that their mother was married to him.
name and denomination of the minister. If the marriage had been performed irregularly, but then registered with a sheriff, then details of the sheriff’s warrant will be given here.
in 1855 alone, the records also identified whether either party had been married before and, if so, how many children had been produced, and of these how many were still alive. Also, the date and place of birth of the bride and groom were given, and whether these births had been registered. These details were abandoned in 1856, but the birthplace of each party was restored in 1972.
Other death records
Municipal cemeteries have been operating since the nineteenth century. Along with crematoria, they usually keep their own records, or you can ask at the nearest archives.
Between death and burial, no small number of bodies went to the anatomy schools of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews. Registers of these cadavers from 1842 onwards are in NAS class MH1, and include name, age and last place of residence (often the workhouse or infirmary). A gory addition to your family tree, perhaps, and for pre-1855 deaths actually quite a useful one.
Transcribed monumental inscriptions from the churchyard in Robert Burns’ birthplace, Alloway (Alloway Monumental Inscriptions, Alloway and South Ayrshire FHS, 2000), showing how inscriptions can connect families across the world.
Deaths
The death indexes show:
name.
name and number of district.
reference number.
ages (the 1859-60 indexes lack ages, but they have been added to the online version).
from 1974 onwards the mother’s maiden name appears.
married women are indexed under married and maiden surname(s). Beware that if a woman was married before, her earlier married name might be given, accidentally, in lieu of her maiden name. If she had been married more than once, one or more of her former married names might (accidentally) be left out.
The death records always show:
name.
date, time and place of death.
cause of death, how long the deceased had been suffering, and the name of the doctor if present.
occupation.
marital status.
gender.
age, replaced from 1966 by date of birth.
place of death.
usual residence, if not the same as the place of death.
whether married or widow(er)ed.
parents’ names, including mother’s maiden name, and whether the parents were alive or dead.
occupation of father.
informant’s name and sometimes address.
in 1855 and from 1861 onwards you will also find details of the spouse (or spouses if there had been more than one marriage). This is not