Banffshire, Scotland Genealogy

Background
Banffshire is a maritime county in the north-east part of Scotland. It is bounded on the north by the Moray Firth, on the east and south-east by Aberdeenshrie, and on the west by the counties of Moray and Inverness. It is about fifty miles in length, and varies from twenty to only three miles in breadth. It comprises an area of about 647 square miles or 414,080 acres. It has twenty-four parishes and six civil districts. The county contains the royal burghs of Banff (the county town) and Cullen and several thriving and populous villages. The surface of the county is beautifully diversified with mountains and vales, and the scenery enriched with woods and plantations, and enlivened with rivers and lakes. The coast, which extends for nearly thirty miles, is bold and rocky, and is much indented with small bays. Salmon and herring fishing are extensive. The land is fertile and nearly one-half is under cultivation. There are quarries for limestone, freestone, gneiss, and granite. The principal manufacture is that of linen. The population in 1851 was 49,679.

(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.

Parishes
Some of the Banffshire parish records are indexed in *Banfshire, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Banffshire 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 Banffshire with their parish number. Click on a parish name to see information on records. See below for a map of Banffshire.

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, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1911, index and images, ($).

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.

Maps
Click on the map of Banffshire to see a larger version. Click on the larger map again, then click the 'Expand' button in the bottom right-hand corner of the map.

Click here to see another online map of Banffshire.

Poorhouses
There is 1 workhouse in this county:

Rathven (Parish Hospital)

A description with drawings and photos of them 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.org.uk" which is owned and operated by Peter Higginbotham.

[Return to county list.]

Helpful Websites

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