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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
Ballantrae was a parish facing the Firth of Clyde located in the former county of Ayrshire. Both county and parish ceased to exist following the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1974. The parish had an area of 136.3km2 (52.6 sq. miles) and had Colmonell in Ayrshire, and Inch and New Luce in Wigtownshire as its neighbouring parishes.
The parish included the settlements of Balkissock, Ballantrae, Downan, Garleffin and Smyrton. The village of Ballantrae is the only settlement of any size with about 300 people.
Ballantrae is now located in the South Ayrshire Council Area, some 11 miles (18 km) north of Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway and 13 miles (21 km) south of Girvan in South Ayrshire.
Research Tips
Sources for Old Parish Registers Records, Vital Records and Censuses
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- Scotland's People This is a pay website providing vital statistics and census data for all of Scotland with original images. There is a description at Scotland under Genealogical Resources.
Notes for Ayrshire
Family History Societies covering Ayrshire include:
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- the Ayrshire Federation of Historical Societies, Dennison House, 11 Chalmers Road, Ayr KA7 2RQ, Scotland.
- The FreeCen Project has a searchable (not browsable) transcription of the whole of Ayrshire online for the 1841 and 1851 censuses.
- Third Statistical Account of Scotland: Ayrshire edited by John Strawhorn and William Boyd, 1951.
Old Parish Register Provision
- Births:1731-1854
- Marriages:1731-1854
- Deaths:1817-1854
Transcriptions of Gravestone Inscriptions
"Pre-1855 Gravestone Inscriptions; an index for Carrick, Ayrshire" edited by Alison Mitchell, and published in Edinburgh in 1988 by the Scottish Genealogy Society. This covers the parishes of Ballantrae, Barr, Colmonell, Barrhill cemetery, Old Dailly, New Dailly, Girvan, Kirkmichael, Kirkoswald, Crossraguel cemetery, Maybole, Straiton, Patna and Alloway (i.e. parts of South and East Ayrshire).
Further Sources of Reference
Please note and respect the copyright warnings on these websites.
- GENUKI article on Ballantrae. The bibliography for Ayrshire is very good.
- The Gazetteer for Scotland article on the parish of Ballantrae. The tabs on the right provide more information, and a map of the parish within its surrounding area, with small settlements highlighted and linked to more information.
- The FamilySearch Wiki article on Ballantrae provides direct reference to FamilySearch holdings on many topics with respect to the parish.
- The National Library of Scotland have a website devoted to maps from the 1600s right up to the present. Comparisons of modern-day and old maps of the same place can be made. From the home page click on "Find by place" and then follow the instructions on the next page. Once you are viewing the place you want, use the slider <----> at the top of the map to compare the layout of roads and the place names of smaller areas, perhaps even farms, with the landscape today. The website takes some getting used to. The One-inch 2nd edition, Scotland, 1898-1904 OS is a series of maps with the parishes delineated. Each of these maps cover an area of 18 x 24 miles and will zoom to comfortable reading size with a couple of mouse clicks on the map itself. Unfortunately, they are not geo-referenced, and it is necessary to go to the OS One Inch 1885-1900 series to locate places by latitude and longitude.
- The Statistical Accounts for Scotland In the 1790s and again in the 1830s, the ministers of the all the parishes of the Church of Scotland were asked to provide a description of their parish to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The original account request included 160 questions to be answered. These accounts are available in print in 20 volumes and are also online where it is freely available to browse. The browsing portal is below the viewing area of most computer screens. Scroll down to "For non-subscribers" and click on "Browse scanned pages". This brings you to another page on which one can enter the name of the parish in which you are interested.
- Excerpts from The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885 are provided by Scottish Places. Selections from Groome and other gazetteers from the 19th century are also found on GENUKI.
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