Lanarkshire, Scotland Genealogy

ScotlandLanarkshire, Scotland

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



Introduction
Lanarkshire is an extensive inland county in the south of Scotland, bounded on the north by the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling, on the east by the counties of Linlithgow, Edinburgh and Peebles, on the south by Dumfriesshire, and on the west by the counties of Renfrew, Ayr and Dumfries. It is about 52 miles in length and 33 miles in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 926 square miles or 592,640 acres.

The county, also called Clydesdale (or Strathclyde), from the valley of the river Clyde, was--after the departure of the Romans--part of an extensive independent kingdom which consisted of nearly all of Scotland south of the river Forth. The inhabitants were ancient British tribes who lost their independence after their metropolis of Dumbarton was taken by the combined forces of the Picts and Saxons in the eighth century. After the subjugation of the Picts by Kenneth II in about the year 971, the whole area came under the authority of the Scottish kings.

During the twelfth century, numerous Flemish families settle in the Strathclyde. In the reign of James I (1603-1625), a portion of Strathclyde was separated from the rest of the county of Lanark and formed into the county of Renfrew.

Lanarkshire consists of 50 parishes and, for civil purposes, is divided into the Upper, Middle and Lower wards, each under a sub-sheriff based at Lanark, Hamilton, and Glasgow. The county includes the royal burghs of Glasgow, Rutherglen, and Lanark, and eight towns and numerous villages.

The surface is greatly varied. In the Upper ward, which is the largest division, is it principally mountainous. In the Middle ward the land is of a lower level but undulated, leaving little level ground except in the valleys of the river Clyde.

Crops of all kinds are abundant. Cattle and sheep are raised. There are freestone, limestone, and whinstone, and coal is extensively wrought, as well as ironstone and limestone. Mines of lead are found in the south. The principal manufactures are cotton (the most extensive), linen, woollen, lace, and iron. There are large cotton mills at Glasgow, Blantyre and New Lanark. Lace is manufactured at Hamilton. There are many ancient remnants and ruins. The population of the county in 1851 was 426,972.

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

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.

Census
The library also has a collection of census surname indexes for different places within Lanarkshire. Click here to see a table listing these other census surname indexes that are available at the library.
 * Scotland Census, 1891, no images. Also at FindMyPast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).== Census ==
 * 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, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1861, no images. Also at, index, ($). 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, 1901, index and images, ($). Also at FindMyPast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1911, index and images, ($).

= Directories =

Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, Post Office Directories are avilable online. The directory available for Airdrie is:

1896: These are available in either PDF format or viewable online.

Parishes
Some of the Lanarkshire parish records are indexed in Lanark, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Lanark 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 Lanark with their parish numbers. Click on a parish name to see information about records.

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 Lanarkshire.

Poorhouse Records
Lanarkshire

There are ten poorhouses in Lanarkshire:

Barony

Cambusnethan

Dalziel

Glasgow Govan

Hamilton

Lanark

NewMonkland

OldMonkland

Cambusnethan

Helpful Websites
[Return to county list.]
 * Lanarkshire Resources and help pages on RootsChat Lanarkshire Resources and help pages. (Free).