Читать книгу Collins Tracing Your Scottish Family History - Ryan Tubridy, Anthony Adolph - Страница 47

Most developed countries have a system of compulsory civil registration (sometimes called General Registration) of births, marriages and deaths. Scottish General Registration started on 1 January 1855 (it began in 1837 in England and Wales, and in 1864 in Ireland, except for Protestant marriages that date from 1845).

Scotland’s registration districts were based on existing parish boundaries, each with a local registrar, who was usually the local schoolmaster or doctor. All births had to be registered with him within twenty days, marriages within three days and deaths within eight days. The local registrars kept their own records, but sent copies to the GROS in Edinburgh, where full indexes were compiled from them all.

An early twentieth-century photo of General Register House in Edinburgh.

As registration districts equated to parishes, it’s easy to search for events taking place where you expect them to be. What may throw you are events being registered in unexpected locations. Some couples married away from their home parishes, children could be born at their mother’s mother’s home, and some people died in hospital, or on holiday, far from their normal home. When searching, you can nominate the registration district you want, but if the search does not work then choose ‘all districts’.

This ‘solution’ can create a new problem – a massive list of possibilities. If you know the area well, you’ll be able to spot local parishes easily: if not, you may be faced with a list of places you’ve never heard of before. ScotlandsPeople helpfully includes the registration district’s county, and the GROS’s official list at www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/famrec/hlpsrch/list-of-parishes-registration-districts.html identifies the county or burgh in which the registration district lies, and its start date. It’s also easy to look them up on www.maps.google.co.uk/.