For civil registrations of births, marriages, and deaths in Scotland I had almost always made use of ScotlandsPeople. That was until I came across "Registers of births, marriages, and deaths, 1855-1875, 1881, 1891; and general index, 1855-1956" on FamilySearch. Now this collection only has the years 1855-1875, 1881, and 1891 but any time I can save a pound or two in my research I will gladly take it. Researcher beware, it does take a multi-step process to find the correct images and it is not as straight forward as just clicking a button, paying your 6 credits, and viewing the record. So patience and some practice will be needed. Like the other FamilySearch Scottish collections I mentioned in Scottish Census and OPRs on FamilySearch, you will need to visit your local Family History Center to do the work.
The Registers of births, marriages, and deaths, 1855-1875, 1881, 1891; and general index, 1855-1956 is composed of two parts, indexes and registrations. The indexes are broken down by year and the registrations are broken down by parish/registration district number and year. Depending on the year, the indexes are also broken down along gender lines. Some of the districts and years have been indexed by FamilySearch but most haven't so you will probably have to follow these steps.
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| Screen capture of McKinlay in Males, A-Z 1855 index in Scotland, Registers of births, marriages, and deaths, 1855-1875, 1881, 1891; and general index, 1855-1956, (The New Register House, Edinburgh); FHL 103244. |
Here is an example of an index entry for a number of McKinlay births from the Males A-Z, 1855 index. The one of particular interest for me is that of James McKinlay registered in Paisley (High), number 387.
To make use of this index I first need to translate the registration parish from "Paisley (High)" into a number. To do that, go to the National Records of Scotland Registration Districts page and download the Parishes and Registration Districts of Scotland by name guide. Next, look through the name guide under the "RD Name" or "Registration District" column for the parish.
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| Screen capture for Paisley from the Parishes and Registration Districts of Scotland by name guide from the National Records of Scotland Registration Districts web page. |
As you can see, there are a number of Paisley registration districts. However, in this example we are looking for the period starting from 1855 for one that has "High" in it. It looks to be number 573/1 since we want the district number as it was known back then. We also know that it is in the "County or Burgh" of Renfrew.
I could also have searched for James McKinlay on ScotlandsPeople. The searching on ScotlandsPeople is free but it will cost you money to view the images.
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| Screen capture of ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk for a search of the 1855 birth of James McKinlay. |
Here it gives us the same information as found on the index on FamilySearch but without having to translate the registration district name into a number. The reference is broken down into two parts, the registration district, 573/1, followed by the number of the registration, 387.
We can head back to FamilySearch and the Registers of births, marriages, and deaths, 1855-1875, 1881, 1891; and general index, 1855-1956 to look for the digitized microfilm that has the parish/registration district holding the births we are interested in.
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| Screen capture of births for Scotland, Renfrew County, Registers of births, marriages, and deaths, 1855-1875, 1881, 1891; and general index, 1855-1956, (The New Register House, Edinburgh); FamilySearch Catalog 79310. |
Just a heads up, the parish/registration microfilms aren't in alphabetical order but in numeric order by registration district/parish number. As you can see, the parish numbers for this part of Renfrew County follow the numbers from Buteshire. But don't let that confuse you too much.
For the 1855 birth registrations in parish/registration number 573/1 which can be found in Renfrewshire we will need to click on the camera icon for film 103367 (DGS 8045422). If you are trying to do this from home you probably have a key icon just above the camera icon. This means that you need to go to your local Family History Center to view the images.
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| Screen capture of births for Scotland, Renfrew County, Registers of births, marriages, and deaths, 1855-1875, 1881, 1891; and general index, 1855-1956, (The New Register House, Edinburgh); DGS 8045422. |
Once you can view the digitized microfilms you will need to scan through the various images to locate the start of the parish/registration district you are interested in. Fortunately it isn't very hard to do and, once you get used to doing it, the microfilm pages with the district names and numbers will almost pop out for you. Next you need to find the page with number 387 on it.
In the case of James McKinlay I was very lucky to have him born in that year. When the civil registrations started in 1855 they used two pages to ask for the information. This meant I got a bit more important information about his parents that I wouldn't get in following years. But it also means I need to stitch together two microfilm images...but that process was already covered in my post Genealogy and Microfilm ICE.
You can do the same sort of searching for marriages and deaths that were registered between 1855 and 1875 along with the decennial census years 1881 and 1891.
One drawback of what is available on FamilySearch in this collection is that the Register of Corrected Entries (RCE) is not available. These are the documents referred to in a birth, marriage, or death registration that has corrections or updates to the registration. If there is a marginal note to a RCE then you definitely want to view that document. If that happens you will need to use ScotlandsPeople and pay to view the record.
I certainly hope that this helps you out in researching your Scottish ancestors.
This is a very helpful and useful article. I just wanted to point out that Scottish OPRs, Censuses and BMDs are available at FamilySearch not just at Family History Centers but also at "Affiliate Libraries".
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