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| Name | Belhelvie |
| Alt names | Balmedie | source: settlement in parish | | Craigie | source: settlement in parish | | Drumhead | source: settlement in parish | | Menie | source: settlement in parish | | Pottertown | source: settlement in parish | | Shiels | source: settlement in parish | | Wester Hatton | source: settlement in parish |
| Type | Parish |
| Coordinates | 57.249°N 2.089°W |
| Located in | Aberdeenshire, Scotland ( - 1975) |
| Also located in | Grampian Region, Scotland (1975 - 1996) | | Aberdeenshire (council area), Scotland (1996 - ) |
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Scottish Record Office Number: 174
(used by ScotlandsPeople, see Research tips, below)
Churches: Belhelvie Old Parish Church, Belhelvie, Church of Scotland
Cemeteries: list available from the Aberdeen & NE Scotland FHS (link under Research tips)
Old Parish Register Availabilty (within FamilySearch):
Baptisms: 1624-1854
Marriages: 1624-1854
Deaths: 1698-1854
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NOTE: Civil registration of vital statistics was introduced to Scotland in 1855. Prior to that date births, marriages and deaths had been recorded in local churches in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs). The OPRs were collected by the Registrar for Scotland in Edinburgh as civil registration started. Although local churches continued to record bmd after 1855, these registers were not collected and stored by the Registrar for Scotland. Some may have found their way into local archives. FamilySearch and ScotlandsPeople both keep records prior to 1855, but only ScotlandsPeople retains microfilms of the original parish books.
Missing intervals in OPRs dates may be due to non-collection of volumes (possibly through loss or damage), or the events being recorded in another book held in the parish.
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Belhelvie is a coastal parish now located in the Aberdeenshire Council Area. It is immediately north of the City of Aberdeen council area and the expansion of its population between 1951 and 2001 reflects the growth in the city caused by the discovery of petroleum in the North Sea.
Most of its growth has been concentrated in the village of Balmedie which lies between the major A90 road and the coast. Balmedie is only mentioned in one of the three 19th century gazetteers available online, but it now accounts for almost half the population of the parish (1,653 in 2001).
From the coast the parish surface forms into ridges and is quite hilly on the western border. Much of the eastern section was improved for cultivation in the early 19th century.
As well as the North Sea, Belhelvie is also bounded by Foveran parish on the north and New Machar on the west.
Population Growth
| Area | acres | sq mi | hectares
| | 1801-1900 | 19,000 | 29.69 | 7,689
| | 1901-2001 | 12,155 | 18.99 | 4,918
| | Year | Population | Density per sq mi | Density per hectare
| | 1801 | 1,428 | 48.1 | 0.19
| | 1851 | 1,692 | 57.0 | 0.22
| | 1901 | 1,614 | 85.0 | 0.33
| | 1951 | 1,554 | 81.8 | 0.32
| | 2001 | 3,802 | 200.2 | 0.77
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Populations 1801-1951 from A Vision of Britain through Time (http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk).
2001 population from Scotland’s Census (https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk).
[Condensed from F. H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4) available on the website Gazetteer for Scotland]
Belhelvie, a post office hamlet and a coast parish of East Aberdeenshire. The hamlet lies towards the middle of the parish, 5¼ miles ESE of New Machar station, and 8 miles N of its post-town, Aberdeen.
The chief mansions are Menie Houses (Misses Turner) in the NE, Balmedie House (W. H. Lumsden) in the E, and Belhelvie Lodge (Major-Gen. Sir H. Burnett Lumsden) near the hamlet.
Other settlements noted are Drumhead (the location of a church built 1878), Pottertown, Shiels, Balmedie, Craigie, Menie and Wester Hatton.
Research Tips
There was formerly a note on this page that the parish was linked to the Presbytery of Aberdeen, Synod of Aberdeen, Scotland. It would appear that since 1975 the organization of the presbyteries and synods has been revised. Readers are reminded that the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian in nature while in England the Church of England is Episcopalian. (See Wikipedia. )
- official civil (from 1855) and parish registers (from when first produced) for births, marriages and deaths for all of Scotland
- original census images for all years available (1841-1911).
- references to wills and property taxes, and
- an extensive collection of local maps.
This site is extremely easy to use. There are charges for parish register entries and censuses. The charges are reasonable and payable by online transfer.
- The Statistical Accounts of Scotland Online provides access to digitised and fully searchable versions of both the Old Statistical Account (1791-99) and the New Statistical Account (1834-45). These uniquely rich and detailed parish reports, usually written by local Church of Scotland ministers, detail social conditions in Scotland and are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Scottish history.
- Scotlands Places
- Gazetteer of Scotland includes descriptions of individual parishes from F. H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4)
- The FamilySearch Wiki
- GENUKI which provides, amongst other data, complete quotations from A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1851) by Samuel Lewis, John Bartholomew's A Gazetteer of the British Isles (1877), and A New History of Aberdeenshire edited by Alexander Smith (1875)
- A list of Burial Grounds in Scotland is now available on the website of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
- Aberdeenshire and Moray Records. Town Council minutes, accounts, letters, plans and harbour records provided by Aberdeenshire Council plus other local records.
- Aberdeen and North-East Scotland Family History Society is one of the largest and most reputable family history societies in Scotland and has a long list of publications referring to individual parishes.
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