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- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia
Govan ( ; Scottish Gaelic: Baile a' Ghobhainn) is a district, parish, and former burgh now part of south-west City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick. Historically it was part of the County of Lanark.
According to medieval legend, Constantine, a seventh-century King of Strathclyde, founded a monastery under the rule of Columbanus in Govan. During the Middle Ages, Govan was the site of a ford and later a ferry which linked the area with Partick for seasonal cattle drovers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, textile mills and coal mining were important; in the early-nineteenth century, shipbuilding emerged as Govan's principal industry. In 1864, Govan gained burgh status, and was the fifth-largest burgh in Scotland. It was incorporated into the City of Glasgow in 1912.
Govan was Registration District 646-1 from 1855-1900.
For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Govan. under the headings "History" and "Economy". The map taken from Blaeu's map of Scotland of 1654 is especially interesting.
Scottish Places also provides a great deal of detail as does GENUKI. Scottish Places' map of Govan as a church parish places it within the neighbourhoods and suburbs of Glasgow since 1900. This is much more evident if you click the box "Check All" to remove all the landmark icons within the boundaries. The diagonal bar is the River Clyde. (Note that this map describes Govan as being in the "historic county of Renfrew"--as it was when the river was the strict division between Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire along this section of the Clyde, and before the growth of Glasgow in the 19th century.)
Research Tips
Dates of Old Parish Registers
Births: 1690-1854
Marriages: 1689-1854
Deaths: 1817-1854
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.
The old parish registers given above are those of the original Church of Scotland. Other churches with congregations in the area included the Free Church (established after 1843), the United Presbyterian Church (established circa 1860), and the Wesleyans (or Methodists). They would have all kept their own parish registers. Roman Catholic Records can be found on Scotland's People.
Sources for Cemetery Information
- The Mitchell Library, North Street, Glasgow G3 7DN holds the records of some twenty Glasgow cemeteries from the Glasgow City Archives, as well as lair plans and registers of burials in intra-mural burial grounds from 1870 to 1950. Records are arranged in unindexed chronological order. Some of these cemeteries have been transcribed by The Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society.
Further Sources of Reference
Please note and respect the copyright warnings on these websites.
- GENUKI article on Govan
- Scottish Places article on Govan--more information may be found by following the tabs on the right. The parish maps in this series are very useful.
- Scottish Places article on Govan as a church parish
- The FamilySearch Wiki article on Govan provides direct reference to FamilySearch holdings on many topics with respect to the parish. There is a note that the Baptismal Register 1850–1903 is available at the Glasgow City Archives, Glasgow, under the call number CH2/1277.
- Glimpses of Glasgow, by Andrew Aird, 1894. An ebook from the Glasgow Digital Library. The first section is an almost street-by-street description of Glasgow discussing its progress from the 1840s to the 1890s. Many suburbs and localities are covered.
- The Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society website contains a plethora of information about the area both inside and outside Glasgow itself.
- 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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