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

Deaths/
Burials
Indexes Records
Coverage Information Information
The Scottish Church Records database
at your Family History Center is also an
1538 –
1854
Though
few exist
excellent index to these same records.
Burials were not considered a “sacrament”
in the Church of Scotland so many death or
burial records simply do not exist. Some do,
however, so you need to check the records
for the parish you are searching. The best
place to do this is at
http://www.scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk/rese
arch/list-of-oprs.html. You can also check
the Family History Library Catalog at
www.familysearch.org.
Besides the name of the person who has
died, the date of death and/or date of burial,
you may find the name of a relative, the
place or parish of residence, and sometimes
the occupation of the person/father/spouse.
A few registers will give cause of death and
some age at death and there may be more
detail recorded for the “important” of the
parish.
The collection also includes the Register of Neglected Entries (RNE) for each parish. These are events which
occurred from 1801-1854 not found in the original parish registers which were added out of some legal
necessity afterwards.
It helps to know that each Church of Scotland parish is numbered. Knowing the parish number is as
important as knowing the name of the parish. The parish number is found in the reference for the parish
register entry you view and also in the microfilm header described above. For example, 685/01 0066 where:
- 685 is the parish code, equivalent to the parish name shown in the index record
- 01 is the parish suffix, an additional index term for locating the relevant register within a parish. The
parish suffix is not always present and may be denoted 00.
- 0066 identifies the volume in which the entry can be located.
Catholic Parish Registers and Records
ScotlandsPeople has a complete indexed and digitized collection of Catholic parish register births/christenings
from 1703-1855. It includes all records known to exist though not necessarily all records that ever existed there
for that time. It has also digitized and indexed Catholic parish register births/christenings from 1855-1908 if
they were available to the Scottish Catholic Archives. This latter part of the collection is far from complete.
Catholic marriages are also available on the website though the coverage is not clearly stated. One important
note, however, is that it is possible, based on Scottish law, for a couple to have banns read in the Church of
Scotland yet for the couple to be married before a Catholic priest. This is because of the legal requirement that
banns be read in the Church of Scotland.
Very limited death and burial records exist but those that are known to exist have been indexed and digitized.
To supplement the collection, records of two Catholic cemeteries in Edinburgh are included in the records.