Place:Grantown-on-Spey, Moray, Scotland

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NameGrantown-on-Spey
Alt namesGrantown on Speysource: Getty Vocabulary Program
Grantownsource: wikipedia
TypeTown
Coordinates57.317°N 3.617°W
Located inMoray, Scotland     ( - 1975)
Also located inInverness-shire, Scotland     (1898 - )
Highland Region, Scotland     (1975 - 1996)
Moray (council area), Scotland     (1996 - )
See alsoBadenoch and Strathspey, Highland Region, Scotlandadministrative district in which it was located 1975-1996
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Grantown-on-Spey is a town in the Highland Council Area in Scotland. It was founded in 1765 as a planned settlement on a low plateau at Freuchie beside the River Spey at the northern edge of the Cairngorm mountains, about 20 miles southeast of Inverness (35 miles by road).

It is the main town in what was the ecclesiastical (and later civil) parish of "Cromdale, Inverallan and Advie" formed by the union of the same-named parishes in the 16th century. Until the 1860s it was formerly in the county of Moray, but was partly within a detached portion of Inverness-shire. From 1898 to 1975 it was a burgh in Morayshire before being subsumed into the Badenoch and Strathspey district of the Highland Region until 1996 when the districts and regions of the two-tier system were abolished. It then became part of the Highland Council Area.

Originally simply "Grantown" (after Sir James Grant), the addition of "on Spey" was one of the first actions of the newly created burgh in 1898.

The 2001 population was 2,166.

Notes for the Highland Council Area and the Western Isles Council Area

The local archives are held by The Highland Archive Service which is based in Inverness with branches in Stornoway, Fort William and Caithness. It is "responsible for locating, preserving and making accessible archives relating to all aspects of the history of the geographical area of the Highlands."

Family history societies and historical associations covering the Highland Council Area and the Western Isles Council Area are:

These associations publish their aims on their websites as well as a list of publications. In many cases the publications are also available through the Scottish Genealogy Society (see below).

  • The FreeCen Project--Scotland has a searchable (not browsable) transcription for each of the counties in the area. Nairnshire and Caithness have the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 complete. Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty have 1841 complete with some work on 1851 and Sutherland has not completed 1841.

Transcriptions of Gravestone Inscriptions

  • The Scottish Genealogy Society provides a series of monumental inscriptions either in print in booklet form or on CD for each of the counties in the area (Caithness, Inverness-shire, Nairnshire, Ross and Cromarty, and Sutherland). Some of the booklets cover only one graveyard, others cover a group. Prices vary. In many cases the coverage is of pre-1855 stones only--this is because gravestone inscriptions are often used by family historians as death registration equivalents in the era of the Old Parish Registers (when deaths were not universally recorded).
  • The Fearn Peninsula Graveyards Project has a paid website which allows browsing in ten graveyards in Easter Ross. They charge £2.50 for 24 hours of usage with unlimited searches.
  • An index of monumental inscriptions from Caithness compiled by D J Ryrie might prove to be a useful start for searching gravestones in that county. GENUKI states "All (?) of the monumental inscriptions (MIs) in Caithness have been collected and are in print currently from Books From Scotland amongst other places." The Scottish Genealogy Society also has a list of their holdings.
  • Sutherland cemeteries are covered in Pre-1855 tombstone inscriptions in Sutherland burial grounds by A S Cowper & I Ross, published at Edinburgh in 1989 by the Scottish Genealogy Society.
  • There are no specific notes for gravestone transcriptions for either Inverness-shire or Nairnshire in GENUKI. However, the Scottish Genealogy Society lists booklets for both counties.

Sources for Emigration Records

  • Hebrides People have a database containing lists of people who emigrated to North America from a number of parishes in the Western Isles.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Grantown-on-Spey. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.