Genealogy Chat

Reference: William Napier and his wife Mary (nee Laurence) would be died between their last child Mary born in c. 1833 and 1841 Scotland census. Some of their children were split and looked after by their relatives in the 1841 census. It would be in Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire.

I know that it would be easy to find burial records through a parish of church in England. I usually check it through LSD, CDs and online. But I don’t know about Scotland.

It is difficult to find burial records in Scotland before 1855 (pre-civil registration). Maybe Scotland churches don’t use burial records?

Could anyone tell me how to find some burial records?

Thanks, Steven.

Good morning Steven - England calling...

Try looking at this site, it might answer some of your questions:

http://www.scan.org.uk/knowledgebase/topics/deathandburial_topic.htm

Another site:

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/contact/contactarchives.htm

The Scottish pre-1855 death records can be quite poor, and they're not available thru scotlandspeople. Often, the OPR evidence for deaths is indirect, and what's recorded is mortcloth rentals.

Anyway, you can check the LDS film - I don't know the "proper" way to look up the film, but the following always works. From the census (or otherwise) you know that Laurencekirk is parish 263. Substitute the parish number in c11xxx2, then look up in the IGI. Don't enter any name, just the region and the batch # (c112632 here), search, and click on the first of the 200 hits shown; then start drilling down through the source # to the film notes. Here it says:

Vol. 1. Baptisms, 1702-1819, marriages, 1702-1819. v. 2. Baptisms, 1820-1854, marriages, 1819-1854. Burials, 1703-1759 (three entries of burials, four entries of funeral expenses). (Preferred film for viewing. Use this before ordering the other filming.) FHL BRITISH Film 993320

Well, looks like you're out of luck there.



Next, for this region, try: http://www.abdnet.co.uk/burialgrounds/
(Laurencekirk is nearly at the S boundary of the original map view, just N of Marykirk) Click on the 3 Laurencekirk balloons - clearly the new cemetery is too new - I don't know when the Episcopalian opened - and the old kirk is interesting. Apparently there are both published and unpublished transcriptions of the MIs, but the ANEFHS don't have them in an online index. If you click on Marykirk, you'll see how indexed stuff is indicated for their online index at:
http://www.abdnet.co.uk/mi-index/

Anyway, you can contact ANEFHS directly:
http://www.anesfhs.org.uk/

You really do want to get hold of the full MI. To cite one example that I've got onfile, compare the index:

TURRIFF
Names and dates on Stone Number 164:
Alexander ANDERSON 20 Oct 1874
Elizabeth SCOTT 31 Jul 1875
Margaret WATSON 22 Nov 1890
Alexander ANDERSON 19 Jun 1908

with the full MI:

1876 Erected by ALEXANDER ANDERSON Hill of Ardmiddle in memory of his son ALEXANDER d 20 Oct 1874 aged 21; his mother ELIZABETH SCOTT d 31 July 1875 aged 80; his wife MARGARET WATSON d 22 Nov 1890 aged 71; above ALEXANDER ANDERSON d 19 June 1908 aged 83

Finally, note (as in the above example) that the practice for this region at this time was that women were buried under their birth names.

Hi Robert, many thanks for the websites. It is interested. I have bookmarked it.

Hi mgnv, many thanks for your explanation. I have learnt a lot with it. I hope they had MI.

Cheers, Steven.