Old Records, New Format

25 January 2007

The birth and marriage certificates of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, will make their first appearance on the Internet on Burns Day, January 25, 2007.

Scotland’s Old Parochial Records range from 1553 to 1854 and include the birth and marriage extracts for Robert Burns. They are the last records to be transferred into digital images as part of a £3 million project to make all records held by the General Register Office for Scotland available online.

The five-year digital programme aims to improve access and speed up searches on Scotland’s genealogical archives.

Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business George Lyon said:

”These records span more than 450 years. They are the last set of registration documents to go online, marking the end of a 3 million GBP project to improve access to Scotland’s records for genealogists worldwide.

“Since this project first began in 2001 there has been an explosion of interest in family history. Visitors from around the world can now research their Scottish roots from their own homes, using documents hundreds of years old. I’m sure it will encourage their interest in visiting Scotland to see for themselves where their ancestors lived.

“Scotland is very fortunate to hold such good historical records. The expansion of the digital records available on the website and in Edinburgh will enhance one of the world’s finest resources for genealogy.

“For the first time, family historians will be able to see on their computers anywhere in the world excellent images of the oldest records held by the General Register Office for Scotland.

“The birth and certificate for Rabbie Burns are just some of the interesting and famous records held in Scotland now easily available by the click of a mouse.”

The Old Parochial Records were originally kept by each Church of Scotland parish and were transferred to the Registrar General in 1855.

The records can now be viewed on the ScotlandsPeople website and in the public search rooms of the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) in Edinburgh.

Notes for News Editors

Old Parochial Registers (OPRs)

1 Before the introduction of compulsory civil registration in 1855, the parish ministers or session clerks of the Church of Scotland in some 900 parishes kept these registers, which record births and baptisms; proclamations of banns and marriages; and deaths and burials. The surviving registers, approximately 3,500 in number, are not complete. Though the oldest records baptisms and banns at Errol in Perthshire in 1553, for some parishes the earliest registers date from the early 19th century. For other parishes there are no registers at all, these having been damaged or lost to fire, flood and decay over the centuries before coming into the care of the Registrar General in 1855. Also, registration was not compulsory and a charge was sometimes made. So not everyone would have registered an event. The content and format of record-keeping also varied considerably from parish to parish and from year to year. So it was a big job to make digital images of the registers and index the records.

2 The ScotlandsPeople website provides indexed digital images of: the statutory registers of births, marriages and deaths for Scotland from 1855, the Scottish census returns from 1841-1901, the Old Parish Registers of Scotland from 1553 to 1854 and Scottish Wills and Testaments from 1513-1901. The website is provided by Scotland On Line, on behalf of the General Register Office for Scotland.

3 Media enquries for this news release.