Nairnshire, Scotland Genealogy

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

Background
Nairn is a county in the north-east of Scotland, bounded on the north by the Moray Firth, on the east by Elginshire (Moray) and a detached portion of the county of Inverness, on the south by Elginshire, and on the west and south-west by Inverness-shire. It is about 22 miles in length and 15 miles in breadth, comprising an area of 200 square miles or 128,000 acres.

It includes four parishes and small detached portions of ones from other counties. In civil matters, it and Elginshire are under the jurisdiction of one sheriff with a sub-sheriff over each. It contains the royal burgh of Nairn (the county town) and a few villages.

The population of the county in 1851 was 9217.

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

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 Buteshire 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

Parishes
Here is a list of historic parishes for the county of Nairn. Click on a parish name to see information about records. Click on this link for an outline map of the parishes of Nairn.

Maps

 * National Library of Scotland map collection

Societies
Moray & Nairn FHS 3 Dunbar Lane Duffus Elgin Moray Iv305QN Scotland email enquiries@morayandnairnfhs.co.uk

Family History Society 14 Leachkin Avenue INVERNESS IV3 8LH Scotland

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

Websites

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