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Scottish Record Office Number: 176
(used by ScotlandsPeople, see Research tips, below)
Churches: Bourtie Parish Church, Bourtie, Church of Scotland
Cemeteries: list available from the Aberdeen & NE Scotland FHS (link under Research tips)
Old Parish Register Availabilty (within FamilySearch):
Baptisms: 1709-1854
Marriages: 1709-1854
Deaths: 1852-1854
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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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Bourtie is an inland parish in the northern part of Aberdeenshire. The nearest burgh is Old Meldrum which is about 2 miles to the northeast. It is bounded on the north by the parishes of Oldmeldrum and Tarves, on the east by Udny, on the south by Keithhall and on the west by Daviot.
Samuel Lewis in his A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland in 1851 reported that 3600 of the parish's 5000 acres were under cultivation with 300 to 400 acres being converted from wasteland in the preceding decade. The principal crops were oats, turnips, potatoes. He describes the surface as "distinguished by two bold elevations, about 600 feet in height, rising nearly in the middle of the parish, a mile from each other; the one on the north being called the Hill of Barra, and the other the Hill of Lawhill-side. They run towards the east, to the extremity of the district, and, uniting there, terminate in the Hill of Kingoody."
There were two estates, Bourtie House, by 1880 the residence of P. Duguid, Esq., and Barra Castle, the residence of Col J Ramsay. (F. H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4)).
There appears to be no built up settlements. The present parish church was built in 1806 and there was a railway station named Lethenty linking to Old Meldrum.
Population Growth
| Area | acres | sq mi | hectares
| | 1801-1900 | 5,6957 | 8.97 | 2,305
| | 1901-2001 | 5,693 | 8.9 | 2,304
| | Year | Population | Density per sq mi | Density per hectare
| | 1801 | 445 | 50.0 | 0.19
| | 1851 | 529 | 59.4 | 0.23
| | 1901 | 408 | 45.8 | 0.18
| | 1951 | 388 | 43.6 | 0.17
| | 2001 | 282 | 31.7 | 0.12
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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).
Research Tips
There was formerly a note on this page that the parish was linked to the Presbytery of Garioch, 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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