Place:Cruden, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Watchers
NameCruden
Alt namesCrudanesource: alternate spelling (GENUKI)
Invercrudensource: alternate name for parish
Ardendraughtsource: ancient castle in parish
Crudensource: village in parish
Cruden Baysource: alternate name for above
Hattonsource: village in parish
Port Errolsource: village in parish
TypeParish
Coordinates57.431°N 1.898°W
Located inAberdeenshire, Scotland     ( - 1975)
Also located inGrampian Region, Scotland     (1975 - 1996)
Aberdeenshire (council area), Scotland     (1996 - )

Scottish Record Office Number: 185
(used by ScotlandsPeople, see Research tips, below)

Churches: Cruden Congregational Church, Cruden, Port Errol, Congregational Church
St James, Cruden Bay, Scottish Episcopal
Cruden Parish Church, Cruden, Church of Scotland

Cemeteries: list available from the Aberdeen & NE Scotland FHS (link under Research tips)

Old Parish Register Availabilty (within FamilySearch):
Baptisms: 1707-1854
Marriages: 1707-1854
Deaths: 1707-1811, 1828-1854

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.

[From A New History of Aberdeenshire, Alexander Smith (Ed), 1875] provided online by GENUKI

In some old records the name is written "Crudane", and takes its rise from "Croju Dane", signifying, "Kill the Dane," originating in the famous battle between King Malcolm II of Scotland, and Canute, son of Sueno, king of Denmark. The battle was fought in the year 1014, in the hollow of Ardendraught, where the Danes then had a castle. The Scots were victorious, and on the site of the battle field they erected a chapel, and buried the dead of both armies.
The parish of Cruden is bounded on the north by the parish of Peterhead, on the east by the German Ocean [North Sea], along which it has a seaboard of about eight miles, on the south it is bounded by the parishes of Slains, Logie Buchan, and Ellon, and on the west by the parishes of Old Deer and Longside. The extreme length from south-west to north-east is 8¾ miles, and the extreme breadth from southeast to northwest is six miles; and the whole area is computed to be 18,444 acres.

Population Growth

Areaacressq mihectares
1801-190018,44428.82 7,464
1901-200118,23728.5 7,380
YearPopulationDensity per sq miDensity per hectare
18011,93467.10.26
18512,47986.0 0.33
19013,444120.8 0.47
19512,29580.5 0.31
20013,449121.0 0.47

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 Ellon, 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.