East Lothian (or Haddingtonshire), Scotland Genealogy

Guide to East Lothian (or Haddingtonshire) ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records. 

Background
East Lothian (or Haddingtonshire until 1921), is a maritime county in the south-east of Scotland, bounded on the north and east by the Firth of Forth, on the south by the county of Berwick, and on the west by Edinburghshire. It is about twenty-five miles in length and sixteen in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 224 square miles or 144,510 acres.

The county is the eastern part of Lothian, an extensive district including also the shires of Linlithgow on the west and Edinburgh in the middle, and since 1974 has been part of the parliamentary region of Lothian. It was erected into a separate county during the reign of James VI (1567-1625). It consists of twenty-four parishes and contains the three royal burghs of Haddington (the county town), Dunbar, and North Berwick, as well as several populous villages and numerous smaller villages.

The county was once part of the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria until the year 1020 when it was ceded to Malcolm II and annexed to Scotland. In 1296 it was the scene of the battle of Dunbar and again in 1650 it suffered from the English under Cromwell. In 1745 it was the scene of the battle of Prestonpans between the forces of the Pretender and the English.

The population in 1851 was 35,886.

(Source: Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, 2nd ed., 1851.  FHL book 941 E5L.)

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 East Lothian 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

Parishes
Some of the East Lothian parish records are indexed in *East Lothian, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records. This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of East Lothian 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 East Lothian or Haddingtonshire with their parish numbers. Click on the parish name for information about records. Click on this link for an outline map of the parishes of East Lothian.

Maps

 * National Library of Scotland map collection

Poorhouse Records

 * Lothian East Lothian Combination

Societies
The Lothians Family History Society Jen Mortensen Phone: 001 909 8090453 E-mail: parishchest@gmail.com

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

Websites

 * East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) Resources and help pages on Roots Chat East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) Resources and help pages.