Source:Scotland. Statutory Records of Births, Marriages and Deaths

The following details come from the ScotlandsPeople website.

The statutory registers date from 1 January 1855 when civil registration was introduced in Scotland to replace the system overseen by the Church of Scotland (the Established Church). Registration of births, deaths and marriages became compulsory from that date, regardless of religious denomination, and followed a standard format for each record type. More information was required to register an event.

Statutory registers is the default record category in advanced search. It covers the following:

• Statutory registers of births, deaths and marriages (from 1855)
• Statutory registers of births, deaths and marriages overseas (from 1855)
• Statutory register of divorces (from 1 May 1984)
• Register of Corrected Entries (RCE)

and the Minor (more modern) Records

• Statutory register of civil partnerships (from 2005)
• Statutory register of dissolutions of a civil partnership (from 2007)

Searching for an Entry

The presentation of the website was revised toward the end of 2016. Records are requested by a "search" process which accepts very wide definitions, i.e., it is possible to ask for every post-1855 record in the whole of Scotland for a specific surname and ask for various spellings to be taken into consideration as well. Unfortunately, it is impossible to request records from a group of nearby counties all at the same time. A successful search returns a list giving the individual's name, the type of occurence, the date (and often the time), the address, names of the other people involved (parents, witnesses, the minister, the physician and the registrar, and the parish in which the baptism occurred. The county in which the parish is/was located has been omitted.

However, the Scottish Record Office set up a numbering system for all the parishes and this numbering system is used in Old Parish Registers, censuses and the Statutory Registers (vital statistics) which replaced the Old Parish Registers in 1855. Parish numbers follow a geographical pattern rather than an alphabetical one. The Registration District Guide is a downloadable pdf file which lists parishes and their counties.

Search results include links to view image or order certificate. The digital images, which are of the original register pages, are restricted as follows for internet research:

• 100 years for births
• 75 years for marriages
• 50 years for deaths

Suggestions

When filling in the blanks on a Search, remember that the default setting is exact spelling. If you are unsure, particularly if the family name starts Mc or Mac, use one of the other settings.

Although the images and transcriptions provided by the Scottish Record Office are primary sources, it is difficult to give them a collection name in the formal way used by Ancestry and FamilySearch who present the transcriptions as a secondary source.

Since January 2017 the charge for viewing these records is £10 for 40 credits. Viewing one entry costs 6 credits. All payments are made by debit or credit cards through WorldPay. The user will be charged in his/her own currency. There is a lot of information available before a charge is levied. The user is not charged again to look at the same record, even if the two viewings are years apart. Records can be downloaded and saved by the user.