Place:Scotland
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Place Information
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Scotland is a nation in northwest Europe and one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom. It occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shares a land border to the south with England. It is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. Apart from the mainland, Scotland consists of over 790 islands. Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Scotland's largest city is Glasgow, which is the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Greater Glasgow is home to approximately 40% of Scotland's population. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. The Kingdom of Scotland was an independent state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union (despite widespread protest across Scotland) resulted in a political union with the Kingdom of England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain.[1][2] Scotland's legal system continues to be separate from those of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and Scotland still constitutes a discrete jurisdiction in public and in private international law. The continued independence of Scots law, the Scottish education system, and the Church of Scotland have been three factors contributing to the continuation of Scottish culture and Scottish national identity since the Union. However, Scotland is no longer a sovereign state and does not have direct membership of either the United Nations or the European Union.
HistoryA thumbnail timeline of Scottish history:
For more detail, see the Wikipedia article on Scottish history. Organization of PlacesThe organization of Scottish places is a complicated amalgam of civil and parochial systems, both of which have suffered revisions. In particular, the civil system has been significantly revised several times since the 1960s, which can cause much confusion to the genealogist or historian looking to understand historical geography. For this reason, WeRelate uses the traditional systems as its primary means of organizing place information in Scotland, as this will correspond more directly with the vast majority of records of genealogical interest.  The primary jurisdictions of interest to the genealogist are the "traditional county" and the "parish". Scotland comprises 33 traditional counties and slightly over 900 parishes. You will see the 33 counties listed in the box to the right (under "Contained places"), and if you click into a county page, you will see its contained parishes similarly listed. If you click into a parish page, there you will see its contained towns, villages, and inhabited places. The parishes, being a church jurisdiction, actually fall into a hierarchy of presbyteries (the next level above parish) and synods (a level roughly equivalent to counties). Once you've located an ancestral place, it will be useful to explore the related places that place contains or is contained in. For example, if an ancestor came from a particular village, there may be sources and records of interest associated with the parish, the county, the presbytery, the synod, etc. Specific place pages may also contain useful information about historical jurisdiction changes. (For instance, it may be useful to know that a village used to be in a different parish or county, but boundaries were changed.) Except for the very largest cities, most Scottish place pages are named in the form "Village, County, Scotland", for example, Ballater, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. For the smaller places, or those whose names are not unique within their county, the parish may also be included in the page name, for example, Finzean, Birse, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In some cases, you may see "(village)" added after a village name. This is typically to distinguish it from a parish of the same name. See organization of Scottish places for further information, including all the messy details. Map and Gazetteer resources
All places in ScotlandGenealogical ResourcesHere is a brief list of the most significant Scottish records at a national level. More place-specific sources are listed on the county and parish pages, and further information about Scottish genealogical resources can be found in the Scotland Research Guide. Primary records
National repositories
Associations
EconomyThis section is a stub. We need a brief summary (with links to detail) of land ownership, what people did for living, etc. Cultural InstitutionsThis section is a stub. We need a brief summary (with links to more detail) of the church, clans, the peerage, education, etc. Immigration and EmigrationThis section is a stub. We need a brief summary of significant Scottish immigration/emigration movements.
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