Scottish Genealogy Online Resources
If you don’t live in Scotland and even if you do, you would surely prefer to research your family history from the comfort of your home rather than going from one archive to another and keep track of opening and closing times. Unfortunately, not everything can be found on the world wide web but there is good news for all who would like to trace their Scottish ancestors. Scotland provides more family information online than any other country.
What Information Can You Find Online and Where
Clan history. Want to learn more about your family clan? The clan system may be medieval but it is very modern when it comes to providing online information. You can search for your family clan on many websites including AncestralScotland, ElectronicScotland and ScotClans, to mention only a few. Then there is of course also the official website of the Court of the Lord Lyon that among other also records genealogies. But since family name is at the same time also the clan name, you can simply enter your surname and the word “clan” into your search engine, and go directly to the official website of your family clan.
Records of births, marriages and deaths. You can access birth, marriage and death records from 1855 onwards at the ScotlandsPeople website. The website also offers access to Old Parish Registers from 1553 to 1864, the Catholic Parish Registers, the Census Records up to 1911, Wills and Testaments from 1513 to 1925, Coat of Arms from 1672 to 1910 and much, much more. It is probably the best place to search for your Scottish ancestors online. Keep in mind, however, that there is a fee unless you drop into their Centre.
Statistical Accounts of Scotland. These can help you learn more about how your Scottish ancestors lived in the 18th and 19th century. You can access the Statistical Accounts of Scotland at EDINA website. You must register but you can access scanned pages from two Accounts for free.
Newspapers. They can help you learn more about both your family and clan history. A good place to start is the OnlineNewspapers website that provides a guide to Scottish newspapers including the local ones.
Online genealogy guides. These will guide you through both online and offline genealogy resources and make the search for an ancestor a lot easier. An excellent example is the GENUKI website that offers extensive information about genealogy resources for the UK and Ireland including those that can be accessed via the world wide web.