Stirlingshire, Scotland Genealogy

''ScotlandStirlingshire

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



Stirlingshire is a county in the eastern part of Scotland, bounded on the north by Perthshire and Clackmannanshire, on the east by the county of Linlithgow, on the south-east by part of Lanarkshire, and on the south and the west by the county of Dumbarton. It is about 45 miles in length and 19 miles in extreme breadth, comprising an area of about 489 square miles or 312,960 acres.

There are many Roman remains in the county. Kenneth II is said to have obtained his victory over the Picts (c.971) at a location near the city of Stirling. The Northumbrian Saxons had control over the area until it was recovered by Kenneth III (c.997). In the reign of the Stuarts (from 1371) Stirling castle became a royal residence, and the history of Stirlingshire has been closely identified with the general history of Scotland ever since.

The county contains 21 parishes, including the detached parish of Alva. The sheriff's court is at Stirling which is the county town and the only royal burgh. The county also includes the burgh of Falkirk and several thriving and pleasant towns and villages.

The surface of the county is diversified with mountains and hills, with valleys and some fine tracts of fertile plain. The beginning of the Highland district, and the mountain of Ben-Lomond, are to the west. About 200,000 acres are arable, 50,000 are meadow and good pasture, and nearly 63,000 are hill pasture, moorland, and waste; also about 1350 acres are in natural wood. The principal crops are wheat, oats, barley, flax, peas, beans, potatoes, and turnips. Fruit trees of every description thrive luxuriantly. Sheep, dairy cows, and horses are reared.

There are strats of whinstone and granite, and freestone of various colours, which are quarried. There is also limestone, ironstone, and coal, which is wrought and shipped to Edinburgh. There is also copper and lead ore and some silver. The principal manufacture is that of cast and malleable iron goods. Woolen manufacture is also extensive; the chief articles are carpets, coarse woollen cloths, and tartans. There are also cotton manufactories, and others, as well as distilleries. Ship-building is pursued to a considerable extent.

The population of the county in 1851 was 82,057.

(Source: Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, 2nd ed., 1851.  Family History Library book, 2 vols.)

Scotlands People: An Important Online 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: For more detail on exact record availability, see Availability. For examples of the records available, see Record Types and Examples. 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 small pay per view fee to see the actual digitized record.

Parishes
Some of the Stirling-shire parish records are indexed in Stirling, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Stirling 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 historic parishes for the county of Stirling. Click on a parish name for information about records.

Census
The Family History Library has county-wide census indexes for Stirlingshire for. The library also has a collection of census surname indexes for different places within Stirlingshire. Click here to see a table listing these other census surname indexes that are available at the library.

Poorhouse Records
There are two poorhouses:

Falkirk Falkirk/

Stirling Combination Stirling/

Maps


Click on the map at the right to see a larger version, and click again on the larger map. Next, click on the ‘Expand’ button when it appears in the lower right-hand corner of the map.

Click here to see an outline map of the parishes of Stirlingshire.

Helpful Websites

 * Stirlingshire Resources and help pages on RootsChat Stirlingshire Resources and help pages. (Free).

[Return to county list.]