Inverness-shire, Scotland Genealogy
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Guide to Inverness-shire County ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.
History[edit | edit source]
Inverness is an extensive county in the north of Scotland, bounded on the north by Ross-shire and the Moray Firth, on the east by the counties of Nairn, Elgin, Banff, and Aberdeen, on the south by Perthshire and the county of Argyll, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 90 miles in length and nearly 80 in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 7200 square miles or 4,608,000 acres, exclusive of the several islands attached to it.
The county was orginally the western portion of the ancient province of Moray and was inhabited by the Picts. The city of Inverness (the county town) may have been the residence of the Pictish kings.
The county contains 45 parishes and four districts/sub-sheriff courts of Inverness, Fort William, Skye, and Long Island. It also contains several villages. The population in 1851 was 97,799. [1][2]
Scotlands People: An Important Online Source[edit | edit source]
ScotlandsPeople is one of the largest online sources of original genealogical information. If you are researching UK genealogy, your Scottish ancestry or building your Scottish family tree, they have more than 100 million records to look through.
The comprehensive choice of Scottish records includes:
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For more detail on record availability, see Guides. For the content guide to what records are on the site, see Guides A-Z. More information on the site, its contents, and instructions for using it can be found in the ScotlandsPeople Wiki article. Indexes may be searched for free, and there is a pay per view fee to see the digitized record.
Census[edit | edit source]
Many census records have been indexed by surname. Some indexes cover one parish (and will be listed in the Wiki on the parish page) and some indexes are for the county as a whole. The Family History Library has county-wide census placename indexes for Inverness-shires- for 1881. Click here for other census indexes available at the library.
- ScotlandsPeople, index, images, free index, pay per view ($)
- Scotland Census, 1841, no images. Also at MyHeritage, index, ($). Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1851, no images. Also at MyHeritage, index, ($). Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1861, no images. Also at [1], index, ($). Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1871, no images. Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1881, no images. Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1891, no images. Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1901 at FamilySearch — index.
- Scotland Census, 1901, index and images, ($). Also at findmypast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
- Scotland Census, 1911, index and images, ($).
Church Records[edit | edit source]
- 1658-1919 Scotland Church Records and Kirk Session Records, 1658-1919 at FamilySearch — index
- 1736-1990 Scotland Presbyterian & Protestant Church Records, 1736-1990 at FamilySearch — index
Civil Registration or Statutory Registers[edit | edit source]
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For details on information found in statutory registers and other methods of searching them, see Scotland Civil Registration. |
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Parishes[edit | edit source]
Some of the Inverness-shire parish records are indexed in Inverness, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
- This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Inverness in the country of Scotland. The records in this collection can range in date from the early 1500s to the mid- to late-1800s. The records include baptisms/christenings, burials, marriages, tombstone inscriptions, obituaries, tax lists, wills, and other miscellaneous types of records. Also included are some records from non-conformist churches. You will find interesting phonetic spelling. Some of the records may be in Latin or even a Welsh or Scottish dialect. Due to the nature of the records and because the records were originally compiled by a third party, it is difficult to absolutely verify the completeness and validity of the data.
Here is a list of the historic parishes for the county of Inverness. Click on the parish name to see information about records.
| Parish | No. | Parish | No. | |
| Abernethy & Kincardine (formerly in Morayshire) | 90a | Kilmonivaig | 99 | |
| Abertarff -- see Boleskine | 92 | Kilmorack | 100 | |
| Alvie | 90b | Kilmuir (Insular) | 112 | |
| Ardersier | 91 | Kiltarlity | 101 | |
| Barra (Insular) | 108 | Kingussie & Insh | 102 | |
| Boleskine (including Abertarff and Ft. Augustus) | 92 | Kirkhill | 103 | |
| Bracadale (Insular) | 109 | Laggan | 104 | |
| Canna -- see Small Isles | 116 | Moy & Dalarossie | 105 | |
| Cromdale, Inverallan & Advie -- see Morayshire | 128b | Muck -- see Small Isles | 116 | |
| Croy & Dalcross | 94 | North Uist (Insular) | 113 | |
| Dalarossie -- see Moy | 105 | Petty | 106 | |
| Daviot and Dunlichty | 95 | Portree (Insular) | 114 | |
| Dores | 96a | Rothiemurchus -- see Duthil | 96b | |
| Duirinish (Insular) | 110 | Rum -- see Small Isles | 116 | |
| Duthil & Rothiemurcas (formerly in Morayshire) | 96b | St. Kilda -- see Harris | 111 | |
| Eigg -- see Small Isles | 116 | Sleat (Insular) | 115 | |
| Fort Augustus -- see Boleskine | 92 | Small Isles (Insular) | 116 | |
| Glenelg | 97 | Snizort (Insular) | 117 | |
| Glenmoriston -- see Urquhart | 107 | South Uist (Insular) | 118 | |
| Harris (Insular) | 111 | Strath (Insular) | 119 | |
| Insh -- see Kingussie | 102 | Urquhart & Glenmoriston | 107 | |
| Inverallan -- see Cromdale | 128b | |||
| Inverness | 98 | |||
| Kilmallie -- see Argyllshire | 520 |
Directories[edit | edit source]
Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, Post Office Directories are avilable online. The directories available for Inverness are:
1873-1912: These are available in either PDF format or viewable online. (Some years are missing)
Maps[edit | edit source]
Click here to see an outline map of the parishes of Inverness-shire.
Poorhouse Records[edit | edit source]
NOTE: Workhouses in Scotland were commonly known as poorhouses. For more information on Scottish poorhouses, go to the Scotland Poor Law page.
There were three workhouses in this county:
A description with drawings and photos of the workhouses today along with databases of those living there from the 1881 Census are provided on the links above located on the site entitled The Workhouse: The story of an institution... which is owned and operated by Peter Higginbotham.
Societies[edit | edit source]
The Highland Archive Centre]
Bught Road
Inverness
IV3 5SS
Scotland
Tel: +44 (0)1463 256444
Email: archives@highlifehighland.com
Lochaber Archive Centre
West Highland College
Carmichael Way, Fort William PH33 6FF
Scotland
Tel: 01397 701942
Scottish Genealogy Society
15 Victoria Terrace
Edinburgh
EH1 2JL
Scotland
Phone-0131 220 3677
Email enquiries@scotsgenealogy.com
Lochaber & North Argyll Family History Group
c/o Alisdair Campbell
9 Victoria Road
FORT WILLIAM
Inverness-shire
PH33 6BP
Scotland
Websites[edit | edit source]
- Genealogical Resource for the Hebridean Islands of Scotland ($) - http://www.hebridespeople.com/
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Samuel Lewis. Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, (London, England: S. Lewis and Co., 1846), 3 v.: 651, [FHL book 941 E5]. Digitized by FamilySearch International, FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/216925 (accessed September 24, 2008).
- ↑ Samuel Lewis. "Ibris - Issay," in A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, (London, 1846), 555-584. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/scotland/pp555-584 (accessed August 17, 2020).