Place:Wigtownshire, Scotland

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown was the most southwesterly of the traditional counties of Scotland. Its industries are agriculture and marine-based activities (fishing, transport, boat building). The county bordered the Irish Sea to the west, Ayrshire to the north, and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright to the east. Wigtownshire includes the southernmost point in Scotland, the Mull of Galloway. Together the Stewartry, or Kirkcudbright, and Wigtownshire are referred to as Galloway. In 1975 the traditional counties of Scotland were abolished and Wigtownshire joined with its neighbours Kirkcudbrightshire and Dumfriesshire to become the Dumfries and Galloway Region. In 1996 the Scottish Regions were reorganized into unitary authorities called Council Areas. For Dumfries and Galloway, there was no change in boundaries or name involved. Prior to 1890 the county town had been Wigtown, but the administrative centre was moved to Stranraer—the largest town—when the original county council was established in that year. Other towns include Newton Stewart, Whithorn and Portpatrick.

The western area, the double peninsula, is known as the Rhinns of Galloway and the eastern area is knows as the Machars. These names are simply used to describe geographical regions--they have no place in government structure.

From the days of the Vikings, the western sections of Galloway were firmly aligned with the Isle of Man, and Norse and Gaelic-Norse settlement names from the 10th and 11th centuries are spread all along the coastal lands of southwestern Scotland. The Isle of Man is visible from the south coast of Wigtownshire.

Wigtownshire is linked by ferries to both Dublin in the Republic of Ireland and Belfast in Northern Ireland.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Wigtownshire. and other articles on the history and geography of the region.

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.

Notes for Wigtownshire

• The Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society website may point to material of interest to the general researcher. Amongst their publications are indexes for the 1841 census. These are prepared as small booklets, one for each parish, and are alphabetically indexed transcriptions. There is also an extensive list of monumental inscriptions. Obtainable from the D & G FHS, (9 Glasgow Street, Dumfries, Scotland DG2 9AF), or at the Ewart Library in Dumfries, Scotland.

• The FreeCen Project has a searchable (not browsable) transcription of the whole of Wigtownshire online for the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses, with the 1871 census partly completed.

• "The Wigtownshire Pages" is an accumulation of links to various websites with genealogical information about Wigtownshire, including Births, Marriages and Deaths from the Wigtown Free Press, an index of a list of people from 1684, and a small website of monumental inscriptions.

• "Wigtownshire Links" is a similar webpage to the one above which may include other websites.

• GENUKI article on Wigtownshire. These articles often include a bibliography.

• The Gazetteer for Scotland article on the county of Glasserton. The tabs on the right provide more information, and a 19th century map of the county within its surrounding area, with small settlements highlighted and linked to more information. The gazetteer has "chapters" on all the parishes and a good many settlements, even very small ones.

• The FamilySearch Wiki article on Wigtownshire provides direct reference to FamilySearch holdings on many topics with respect to the county. There is also a webpage for each of the parishes.

• The National Library of Scotland have a website devoted to maps from the 1600s right up to the present. Comparisons of modern-day and old maps of the same place can be made. 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 One-inch 2nd edition, Scotland, 1898-1904 OS is a series of maps with the parishes delineated. Each of these maps cover an area of 18 x 24 miles and will zoom to comfortable reading size with a couple of mouse clicks on the map itself. Unfortunately, they are not geo-referenced, and it is necessary to go to the OS One Inch 1885-1900 series to locate places by latitude and longitude.

• 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.

• Excerpts from The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885 are provided by Scottish Places. Selections from Groome and other gazetteers from the 19th century are also found on GENUKI.