The official Governmental
source of genealogical data for Scotland is at
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. It
is an online "pay-per-view" database of indexes from the genealogical
records of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). It costs £6
(sterling) for 30 "page credits". Each page consists of a maximum of 15
search results. The initial 30 page credits are valid for 24 hours
from the time of payment (ie the clock starts when you pay). Further credits
can be bought in 30 page increments for a further £6 charge each time. Each
further purchase restarts your 24 hour user period from the time of payment.
About the index
The database contains fully searchable indexes of the Old Parish Registers
of births/baptisms and banns/marriages dating from 1553 to 1854, indexes to
the Statutory Registers of births and marriages from 1855 to 1901, indexes
to the Statutory Registers of deaths for 1855 to 1926. Recently Origins has
been updated and the index to
census records for 1881,1891 and now 1901 are on line.
Changes since February 2002:
It is now possible to search across the entire date range of the whole site
at one go, so you can get the birth, marriage and death records
for an individual in one go. You can also search for siblings of a family
group at one go.
One additional year of
births/deaths/marriage index data is added per annum (1900, 1901 etc.). The
restriction to data over 100 years old is GROS policy, to protect the
privacy of living persons.
The on line facility is at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
Searching is possible on the following fields:
-
Surname
-
Event type
(birth/christening, marriage, death, census)
-
Sex
-
Forename (or first
initial)
-
Year of registration (or
range of years)
-
Age (or age range) - deaths
and 1891 census only
-
Parish or Registration
District
-
County (Old Parish
Registers only)
Searching is also possible on
other names which are mentioned within a particular record. This includes
spouse's name, father's name, mother's name and mother's maiden surname,
depending on the entry.
Before using the facility you are advised to read the
GRO guidance on interrogation and the fields that can be searched. This will
help you to make the most of your on line time.
Extract Ordering
An extract is an official copy of all the information in an entry in the
original registers held by GROS. Entries themselves often contain additional
information that is not held within the indexes and can be of historical
interest. Extracts of the original entries in the GROS records can be
ordered directly from the database. Extract orders are processed by GROS and
sent via ordinary mail as paper documents. For details of what extracts are
and what they look like there is a preview facility. The cost of each
extract is £10.
Extracts of entries not
accessible via the online database (that is those which are less than one
hundred years old) can be ordered directly from the GROS website
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/.
There is a free search facility which gives global details of the
location of the name in the GRO files.
The free search facility is on the home page and can help narrow
down searches,
The search results shows,
for example, the number of records for ORR
between 1553 and 1899 in each dataset
as follows: |
Old Parish Record
Births/Christenings (1553-1854) |
6261 |
Old Parish Record
Marriages (1553-1854) |
4210 |
Old Parish Record
Unknown (1553-1854) |
2 |
Statutory Index
Births (1855-1899) |
5811 |
Statutory Index
Marriages (1855-1899) |
2455 |
Statutory Index
Deaths (1855-1924) |
4284 |
1891 Census
|
4133 |
Total |
27154 |
|
The latest number of records with surname ORR between
1553 and 1951 in each dataset are:
OPRI & SRI Birth & Christenings (1553 - 1901)
12357
OPRI & SRI Marriages (1553 - 1926)
4643
SRI Deaths (1855 - 1951)
9334
1891 Census
4133
1901 Census
4429
Total
34896
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