Place:Dalmellington, Ayrshire, Scotland

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

The Parish

Dalmellington was a parish located in the old county of Ayrshire. Following the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1974 both the county and the parish ceased to exist (but the parish continues to have a place in the presbytery system of the Church of Scotland). The parish had an area of 72.3 sq. km (27.9 sq. miles) and had 6 neighbouring parishes: Coylton, Dalrymple, New Cumnock, Ochiltree and Straiton in Ayrshire and Carsphairn in Kirkcudbrightshire.

The parish included the settlements of Bellsbank, Burnton, the village of Dalmellington, Dunaskin, Patna, Pennyvenie and Waterside.

Dalmellington is now located in the East Ayrshire Council Area, some 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Cumnock in East Ayrshire and 12 miles (19 km) east of Maybole in South Ayrshire.

The Village

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Dalmellington is a market town and civil parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland. In 2001 the village had a population of 1,407. The town owes its origins to the fault line separating the Southern Uplands of Scotland from the Central Lowlands. Dalmellington sits at the issue of a river from the uplands into Dalmellington Moss plain.

The town has a history as a rest area, market town, weaving centre and mining village. The Chalmerston open cast coal mine to the north of the village covered some 742 hectares, but the operations have now ceased and the first phase of the site restoration has been completed. The town used to have a working museum to record the history of the area, but it was closed in January 2017.

There are many Sites of Special Scientific Interest around Dalmellington, the most notable being the nearby Loch Doon. Selection of local views The Scottish Dark Sky Observatory is located near Dalmellington and is within the northern edge of the Galloway Forest Dark Sky Park, however it was completely destroyed by fire in the early hours of 23 June 2021.

The village has two schools within the ‘Doon Campus’ - Dalmellington Primary School & Doon Academy.

Dalmellington Craigengillan Curling Club is the oldest constituted club in Dalmellington; it was formed on 3 December 1841 in the Black Bull Hotel and has continued unbroken since. In 2004 the members reinstated the outside curling pond at Craigengillan, this is the only self leveling curling pond in Scotland.

Research Tips

Sources for Old Parish Registers Records, Vital Records and Censuses

• FamilySearch (Indexes only)

• 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:

• Alloway & Southern Ayrshire FHS

• Glasgow & West of Scotland FHS

• Troon & Ayrshire FHS

• East Ayrshire Family History Society publish CD-ROMs of an 1851 census index (190,000 entries) and 1861 census index (almost 200,000 entries).

• 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: 1641-1854

Marriages: 1641-1854

Deaths: no entries

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).

"Pre-1855 Gravestone Inscriptions in Kilmarnock and Loudoun District" edited by Alistair G. Beattie and Margaret H. Beattie and published in Edinburgh in 1989 (reprint) by the Scottish Genealogy Society. This covers burial grounds in the parishes of Dunlop, Stewarton, Fenwick, Kilmaurs, Kilmarnock, Riccarton, Galston and Loudoun (i.e., central Ayrshire excluding Ayr and its environs).

The Troon & Ayrshire FHS has published the following books of Monumental Inscriptions: Old Alloway, Coylton, Craigie, Crosbie (Troon), Dundonald, Monkton, Newton Green Cemetery (Ayr), Six Kyle graveyards (includes Barnweill, Culzean, Coodham, Fairfield, Newton-on-Ayr and St. Margaret's, John Street, Ayr), The Secessionist Graveyard (King Street, Ayr), St. Nicholas (Prestwick), St. Quivox, Symington, Wallacetown Cemetery (Ayr), Ayr Auld Kirk.

Further Sources of Reference

Please note and respect the copyright warnings on these websites.

• GENUKI article on Dalmellington. The bibliography for Ayrshire is very good.

• The Gazetteer for Scotland article on the parish of Dalmellington. 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 Dalmellington 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.