Genealogy Chat

Top tip - using the Genes Reunited community

Welcome to the Genes Reunited community boards!

  • The Genes Reunited community is made up of millions of people with similar interests. Discover your family history and make life long friends along the way.
  • You will find a close knit but welcoming group of keen genealogists all prepared to offer advice and help to new members.
  • And it's not all serious business. The boards are often a place to relax and be entertained by all kinds of subjects.
  • The Genes community will go out of their way to help you, so don’t be shy about asking for help.

Boards

Quick Search

Single word search

Tools

Findmypast DNA Banner

Icons

  • New posts
  • No new posts
  • Thread closed
  • Stickied, new posts
  • Stickied, no new posts

Kirk Session Records - an underrated source

Login to Add Reply Watch This
ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

Alison

Alison Report 16 Dec 2010 21:21

Anyone with Scottish ancestors is likely to find Kirk Session Registers a valuable source of information. They're especially useful in identifying fathers of illegitimate children.

For examples of the detail recorded in these registers, have a look at:

http://genegenie-scotland.blogspot.com/2010/12/dallas-kirk-session-minutes-december.html

and

http://genegenie-scotland.blogspot.com/2010/12/pitsligo-kirk-session-register-1810.html

Alison

Janet 693215

Janet 693215 Report 16 Dec 2010 21:38

I'll be off to take a look at that, Doubt any of mine will be on there though, they were all so good. (Or at least they tended to marry once the pregnancy was showing) LOL

moonbi

moonbi Report 16 Dec 2010 21:43

THanks Alison

Do you know if there is an equivalent for England?

annette

Researching:
researching Lyon- NTHS, Sutton -CAMBS

Dawn

Dawn Report 16 Dec 2010 22:16

Alison
Just had a lookat the website, are the Kirk session records for selkirkshire on there?
Thanks
dawn

mac

mac Report 16 Dec 2010 22:17

This is totally unfair! Most of my ancestors were illegitimate, but were English - why can't we have one of these?

Madmeg

Madmeg Report 16 Dec 2010 22:37

Mac, most of mine were born 6 months after marriage, so there were either a lot of premature births, or a lot of shenanigins that nobody owned up to.

mac

mac Report 16 Dec 2010 23:06

Oh Madmeg, maybe we come from the same family? I'll cover your bet and raise you 5, I've got a g-gr,ndmother with 5 children, all must be premature cos they were born long before my g-grandfather came along - then they went on to 3 more. Must have been the practice, she managed to keep them to full term!

~~~Secret Red ^^ Squirrel~~~ **007 1/2**

~~~Secret Red ^^ Squirrel~~~ **007 1/2** Report 16 Dec 2010 23:33

Hi Joan,

I googled and came across this:

http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/101101.asp

A new service that opens up access to the digital images of millions of pages of church court records has been launched by the National Archives of Scotland (NAS).

The records consist of the minutes and accounts of kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. They also contain a wide variety of other documents, providing a picture of everyday life in Scotland from the sixteeenth century onwards and amount to more than 25,000 volumes, about 5 million pages of information
Local archive access in Scotland
Until now researchers in many parts of Scotland have found it difficult to travel to the archive where the records are physically held. Now for the first time the NAS and many local archives are combining to offer a service that researchers can use to get access to records from across Scotland. The service is being rolled out from November 2010, and it is hoped that more than a dozen local archives will be places where digital copies of the records can be consulted, in addition to the NAS itself.

The following archives currently offer the service in their search rooms:

Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives

Orkney Library and Archive
Please contact the relevant archive for details of opening times and access.

Plans for wider online access
Later in 2011 it is planned to make the church records more widely available online via a subscription-based service. It is expected that this will be undertaken by ScotlandsPeople, the family history website which NAS runs with the General Register Office for Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon. Researchers will have the choice of accessing the records free of charge in various Scottish archives, or using the subscription service.

George MacKenzie, Keeper of the Records of Scotland, who heads the National Archives of Scotland, said: ‘Church records have long been among the most popular records in our care. Using digital technology, and with the help of local archives, we are making the remarkable information they contain available to a much wider audience. We’re confident that these exciting developments will make family history and academic historical research much easier. We expect many people will discover new avenues to follow when they begin to explore the records.’

Alison

Alison Report 17 Dec 2010 09:13

Apologies to those excited people who thought my links were to original records, rather than local examples chosen to illustrate the details which are usually recorded.

To the best of my knowledge, England had no similar system.

Until recently Kirk Session records were only available to personal researchers visiting the National Archives of Scotland. They can now be accessed from search rooms at Aberdeenshire Archives, Aberdeen City Archives and Orkney Archives. Over the coming months other Scottish archives centres will also be able to offer access. The system allows users to search and view digitised records from the whole of Scotland.

The best place for updates on the situation is the NAS website: www.nas.gov.uk

Alison