Place:Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Coatbridge is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, about east of Glasgow city centre, set in the central Lowlands. While the earliest known settlement of the area dates back to the Stone Age era, the founding of the town can be traced to the 12th century, when a Royal Charter was granted to the monks of Newbattle Abbey by King Malcolm IV. Along with neighbouring town Airdrie, Coatbridge forms the area known as the Monklands (population approximately 90,000 including outlying settlements), often considered to be part of the Greater Glasgow urban area – although officially they have not been included in population figures since 2016 due to small gaps between the Monklands and Glasgow built-up areas.

In the last years of the 18th century, the area developed from a loose collection of hamlets into the town of Coatbridge. The town's development and growth have been intimately connected with the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, and in particular with the hot blast process. Coatbridge was a major Scottish centre for iron works and coal mining during the 19th century and was then described as 'the industrial heartland of Scotland' and the 'Iron Burgh'.

Coatbridge also had a notorious reputation for air pollution and the worst excesses of industry. However, by the 1920s, coal seams were exhausted and the iron industry in Coatbridge was in rapid decline. After the Great Depression, the Gartsherrie ironwork was the last remaining iron works in the town. One publication has commented that in modern-day Coatbridge 'coal, iron and steel have all been consigned to the heritage scrap heap'.

Research Tips

Sources for Old Parish Registers Records, Vital Records and Censuses

Refer to Old Monkland for parish registers for Coatbridge.

• 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.

Further Sources of Reference

Please note and respect the copyright warnings on these websites.

• GENUKI article on Coatbridge
• Scottish Places article on Coatbridge--more information may be found by following the tabs on the right. The parish maps in this series are very useful.
• The maps website of the National Library of Scotland allows comparisons of modern-day and old maps of the same place. 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 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.