Having seemingly promised their arrival since what feels like the Reformation of 1560, it's finally happened - ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) has added the kirk session records for the Church of Scotland and dissenting Presbyterian church branches to its platform.
Each parish in Scotland had its own kirk session, the lowest of the church courts which was comprised of the minister, elders and heritors, who not only officiated on cases of kirk discipline, but also maintained the daily affairs of the parish. Also available are some records for the higher church courts of the presbytery and the synod. Records are a gold mine for ancestry, often listing members who were displined for breaches of the kirk's rules, such as blasphemy, antenuptial fornication, and working on the Sabbath, as well as lisitng people in receipt of poor relief. One record for a five times great grandfather of mine in Perthshire even noted his conviction by the session for dirty dancing ('promiscuous dancing')!
The images have been made freely available to view in a new section of the site named Virtual Volumes (after the computer system in use at the NRS Historic Search Room), but to download any page will cost 50p, or 2 credits. A full guide on how to use the records is available at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/using-virtual-volumes. From the site:
Virtual Volumes currently contains more than 6,000 volumes from the courts of the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches. The records are mainly those of kirk sessions, presbyteries and synods between 1560 and 1870. To see what is available for a parish, presbytery or synod, use the volume search page or the place search. NRS is grateful to the Church of Scotland for their participation and support in this endeavour.
There are challenges to overcome when using the records, particularly the further back in time you go, with handwriting and old forms of vocuabulary, not least of which the use of the Scots language. But whilst the 1921 census will be fun to see when it appears later this year, this is the undoubtedly the biggest release we'll see from ScotlandsPeople in many years.Well done to all who succeeded in getting them to us online!
Have fun!
NB: I discuss the use of kirk session records extensively in my book Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records, available from Pen and Sword at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Scottish-Ancestry-through-Church-and-State-Records-Paperback/p/16848, which may help users to understand them and their incredible potential further. You can also read a short history of the Kirk and the many splinter groups from it in my article at the top of this blog entitled Kirk History, available directly at http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/p/kirk-history.html.
UPDATE: ScotlandsPeople's own announcement on the records is available at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/article/news-article-virtual-volumes-records-released
Chris
Just out, Sharing Your Family History Online is on sale at https://bit.ly/SharingFamHist. Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is also out, as are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.
