Stirlingshire, Scotland Genealogy

Guide to Stirlingshire County ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

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

ScotlandsPeople: 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 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
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 Stirlingshire for. 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, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1861, no images. Also at MyHeritage, index, ($). 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, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
 * 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

 * 1658 - 1919 - at FamilySearch — index
 * 1736 - 1990 - at FamilySearch — index
 * 1755 - 2019 - Scotland, Stirlingshire & Perthshire Burials 1755-2019

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. Click on this link for an [http://www.scotlandsfamily.com/parish-map-stirling.htm '''outline map of the parishes of Stirlingshire. ''']

Maps

 * National Library of Scotland map collection

Poorhouse Records
There were two workhouses in this county:


 * Falkirk


 * Stirling Combination

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
CSFHS Secretary 4 Fir Lane Larbert FK5 3LW Scotland email secretary

Scottish Genealogy Society 15 Victoria Terrace Edinburgh EH1 2JL Scotland Phone-0131 220 3677 Email enquiries@scotsgenealogy.com

Websites

 * Stirlingshire Resources and help pages on RootsChat Stirlingshire Resources and help pages..