Getting to the Roots of Your Family - RootsWeb - Ancestry.com

o The Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland, John Marius Wilson, ca. 1900, British Reference 941 E5w
Also note the section on parish descriptions above in the section on help and other resources.
12. Find a good map of the locality. Try using:
o Parish Maps of Scotland, British Reference 941 E7ch 1991 & fiche number 6036350
o The Phillimore Atlas & Index of Parish Registers, British Reference 942 E7pa 1995
o www.getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk
o www.multimap.com
o www.old-maps.co.uk
o Use a search engine like www.google.com to search for your parish
Remember, there are no magic fences separating parishes or counties. If your location is at the edge of a
county make sure it’s nearby. Geographic features such as rivers, mountains or valleys would have had a
greater impact on an ancestor’s movement than a line on a map.
13. People sometimes moved around. If you don’t find someone in the district you expect to find them in,
search nearby registration districts or broaden the search to the whole county. It’s also possible that an
ancestor moved out of Scotland to England or America for example.
14. Become familiar with the jurisdictions of the locality, both church and civil such as the:
o Village
o Parish (parish numbers)
o District (often the same as the parish)
o County
o Probate jurisdiction
15. It is possible to include too much information in your search. If put more information on an ancestor than
the record itself may contain, you may not find your ancestor. (Example: a search for John William
McDonald may be unsuccessful if the index or original did not include the middle name). If you fail to
find an entry you are looking for, try being less specific.
16. Analyze and use information from several record types together. For example:
a. Birthplaces and ages recorded in census records can be used to look for their births or baptisms in the
Old Parish Registers.
b. The names of parents found in a civil registration birth certificate or marriage can be looked up in the
civil registration marriage index or the OPR index.
c. The disappearance of an elderly relative or a young child between census years might indicate a death
to be pursued.
d. A woman might return to her family home for her first the birth of her first child, therefore the
birthplace of the eldest child might be an indication of where her parents are living.
17. More important than anything, keep trying. Try different searches when you need to. If you always
search for things the same way you will get the same results.
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