Midlothian (Edinburghshire), Scotland Genealogy

''Scotland  Midlothian

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



Background
Edinburghshire, or Midlothian, is the metropolitan county of the kingdom of Scotland, bounded on the north by the Firth of Forth (along the shore of which it extends for about twelve miles), on the east by Haddingtonshire and small portions of the counties of Berwick and Roxburgh, on the south by the counties of Lanark, Peebles, and Selkirk, and on the west by Linlithgowshire. It is about 36 miles in length from east to west and 18 miles in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 360 square miles or 230,400 acres.

The county originally occupied the central portion of the ancient and extensive province of Lothian, or Loudon, and from this circumstance it obtained the appellation of Mid Lothian. After the departure of the Romans, this district very soon fell into the power of the Saxons where it remained until Malcolm II defeated the Saxons and gained the area.

The county comprises 30 parishes besides those in the capital city of Edinburgh, which is also the county town. Edinburgh is the only royal burgh. Musselburgh and Canongate are burghs of regality, Dalkeith and Portsburgh are burghs of barony, the chief port is Leith, and there are seventeen flourishing villages and numerous pleasant hamlets.

About 100,000 acres are arable, 80,000 area meadow and pasture, and the remainder are moorland and waste. The surface is diversified with hills, of which the two principal ranges are the Pentland and the Moorfoot. The richest soil is found in the lower part of the county, towards the Forth. The chief crops are wheat, barley, oats, beans, peas, potatoes, and turnips. Vegetables and fruits of all kinds (including strawberries) are raised in abundance for the supply of the city. Cattle, milk cows, and horses are raised; also sheep, swine, and large numbers of poultry and geese.

The substrat comprise limestone, freestone, and whinstone, all of which are quarried. Coal is very abundant and there are at present about twenty mines in constant operation. The principal munufacture is that of linen. There is also the manufacture of gunpowder, glass, soap, salt, candles, bricks, tiles and pottery of various kinds, and papger. The manufacture of silk has been introduced. There are iron-works, tanneries, distilleries, breweries, and numerous other manufacturing establishments. There are excellent roads, the Union canal, the Firth of Forth, and several railways for transportation. The Firth abounds with herrings and other fish, and the beach with shell-fish of every kind and beds of oysters.

The population of the county in 1851 was 225,454.

(Source: Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, 2nd ed., 1951.  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

 * 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, 1891, 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, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1911, index and images, ($).

The library also has a collection of census surname indexes for different places within Midlothian. Click here to see a table listing these other census surname indexes that are available at the library.

Cargill, David C. Irishmen in Scottish Census Records. Two census returns in respect of Irish Regiments stationed at Leith Fort and Piershill Barracks in Edinburgh 1851. Regiments - Royal Artillery - gives places of birth in Ireland, civilian occupation. 13th Light Dragoons only gives name, position in Army, age, where came from in Ireland, wife and any children. Article in The Irish Ancestor, Vol. IV, no. 1. 1972, pages 8-14, Family History Library Book Ref.941.5 B2i

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

1903: These are available in either PDF format or viewable online.

Parishes
Some of the Midlothian parish records are indexed in Midlothian, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Midlothian 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 Midlothian (or Edinburghshire) 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 parish of Midlothian.

Helpful Websites

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

[Return to county list.]