Sutherland, Scotland Genealogy

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

History
Sutherland is a county in the north of Scotland, bounded on the north by the North Sea, on the east and north-east by Caithness-shire, on the south by Ross-shire and the Firth of Dornoch, on the south-east by the Moray and Dornoch Firths, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 62 miles in length and 49 miles in breadth, comprising an area of 2875 square miles or 1,840,000 acres, of which about 32,000 are inlets of the sea, forming salt-water lochs.

The proprietor of nearly the whole county is the Duke of Sutherland whose ancestors have been the proprietors of the territory since the 13th century.

The county, which contains thirteen parishes, includes the royal burgh and county-town of Dornoch, and several villages on the coasts. The population of the county in 1851 was 24,782.

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 Sutherland 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 Sutherland with their parish numbers. Click on a parish name to see information about records. Click this link for an outline map of the parishes of Sutherland.

Maps

 * National Library of Scotland map collection

Poorhouse Records
NOTE: Workhouses in Scotland were commonly known as poorhouses. For more information on Scottish poorhouses, go to the Scotland Poorhouses, Poor Law, Etc page.

There was one workhouse in this county:


 * Sutherland Combination

A description with drawings and photos of the workhouse and almshouses today along with databases of those living there from the 1881 Census are provided on the link above located on the site entitled The Workhouse: The story of an institution... which is owned and operated by Peter Higginbotham.

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

The Highland Archive Centre Bught Road Inverness IV3 5SS Scotland Tel: +44 (0)1463 256444 Email: archives@highlifehighland.com

Websites

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