Place:Lothian Region, Scotland

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

Lothian, like the other regions that made up Scotland between 1975 and 1996, was a very short-lived administration. The Regions have since been replaced by Council Areas, most of which cover a smaller area, and are unitary authorities. The regional names should not be used in WeRelate except to report a happening that occurred during the timespan of their existence.

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

Lothian is a region of the Scottish Lowlands, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills and the Moorfoot Hills. The principal settlement is the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, while other significant towns include Livingston, Linlithgow, Bathgate, Queensferry, Dalkeith, Bonnyrigg, Penicuik, Musselburgh, Prestonpans, North Berwick, Dunbar, Whitburn and Haddington.

Historically, the term Lothian referred to a province encompassing most of what is now southeastern Scotland. In the 7th century it came under the control of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, the northern part of the later kingdom of Northumbria, but the Angles' grip on Lothian was quickly weakened following the Battle of Nechtansmere in which they were defeated by the Picts. Lothian was annexed to the Kingdom of Scotland around the 10th century.

Subsequent Scottish history saw the region subdivided into three counties—Midlothian, East Lothian, and West Lothian—leading to the popular designation of "the Lothians".

Lothian Regional Council (1975–1996)

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

Research Tips

• Scotlands People, the website of the Scottish Register Office provides

• 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).
• collections of wills and testaments and
• property tax listings
• an extensive collection of local maps
• kirk session records for individual parishes (added in 2021 and not yet complete).

This site is extremely easy to use. There are charges for parish register entries, collections of wills, and census listings (the 1881 census is free to view, also on Ancestry and FindMyPast). The charges are reasonable and payable by online transfer. Viewing the kirk session records is free, but a charge will be made for a copy.

• The National Library of Scotland have an online map collection of historic and modern day maps which can zoom in on a specific farmhouse or street in a town. Their collection also includes London and some counties of southeast England.
• Gazetteer for Scotland contains an article for each parish from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland by F. H. Groome, (published 1882-4) and short details about each parish today including names of small settlements within a parish.
• The FamilySearch Wiki explains a great many legal terms only found in Scotland and provides a gazetteer for genealogists for each parish across the county. It reviews the availablility of parish registers.
• GENUKI Scotland which provides for each Scottish parish (indexed by county), 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 possibly other gazetteers from individual counties and regions. It is worth reviewing one of its county pages to see what is available online or in print from local archive providers. Each county page has a "Where in ---shire is .... ? section--very helpful in pinpointing the small places below parish level.
• A list of Burial Grounds in Scotland is now available on the website of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies.
• 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.