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Scotland Dundee  Dundee

Guide to Dundee, Scotland history, family history, and genealogy parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
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Dundee is officially the City of Dundee. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it forms one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. The name "Dundee" is made up of two parts: the common Celtic place-name element dun, meaning fort; and a second part that may derive from a Celtic element, cognate with the Gaelic dè, meaning 'fire'.

While earlier evidence for human occupation is abundant, Dundee's success and growth as a seaport town arguably came as a result of William the Lion's charter, granting Dundee to his younger brother, David (later Earl of Huntingdon) in the late 12th century. The situation of the town and its promotion by Earl David as a trading center led to a period of prosperity and growth. The earldom was passed down to David's descendants, among whom was John Balliol. The town became a Royal Burgh on John's coronation as king in 1292. The town and its castle were occupied by English forces for several years during the First War of Independence and recaptured by Robert the Bruce in early 1312. The original Burghal charters were lost during the occupation and subsequently renewed by Bruce in 1327.

The burgh suffered considerably during the conflict known as the Rough Wooing of 1543 to 1550, and was occupied by the English forces of Andrew Dudley from 1547. In 1548, unable to defend the town against an advancing Scottish force, Dudley ordered that the town be burnt to the ground. In 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Dundee was again besieged, this time by the Royalist Marquess of Montrose. The town was finally destroyed by Parliamentarian forces led by George Monck in 1651.

The town played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Jacobite cause when John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee raised the Stuart standard on the Dundee Law in 1689. The town was held by the Jacobites in the 1715–16 rising, and on 6 January 1716 the Jacobite claimant to the throne, James VIII and III (the Old Pretender), made a public entry into the town. Many in Scotland, including many in Dundee, regarded him as the rightful king.

The economy of medieval Dundee centered on the export of raw wool, with the production of finished textiles being a reaction to recession in the 15th century. Two government Acts in the mid 18th century had a profound effect on Dundee's industrial success: the textile industry was revolutionized by the introduction of large four-story mills, stimulated in part by the 1742 Bounty Act which provided a government-funded subsidy on Osnaburg linen produced for export. Expansion of the whaling industry was triggered by the second Bounty Act, introduced in 1750 to increase Britain's maritime and naval skill base. Dundee, and Scotland more generally, saw rapid population increase at end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.

The phasing out of the linen export bounty between 1825 and 1832 stimulated demand for cheaper textiles, particularly for cheaper, tough fabrics. The discovery that the dry fibers of jute could be lubricated with whale oil (of which Dundee had a surfeit, following the opening of its gasworks) to allow it to be processed in mechanized mills resulted in the Dundee mills rapidly converting from linen to jute, which sold at a quarter of the price of flax. Interruption of Prussian flax imports during the Crimean War and of cotton during the American Civil War resulted in a period of inflated prosperity for Dundee and the jute industry dominated Dundee throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Unprecedented immigration, notably of Irish workers, led to accelerated urban expansion, and at the height of the industry's success, Dundee supported 62 jute mills, employing some 50,000 workers.

While the city's economy was dominated by the jute industry, it also became known for smaller industries. Most notable among these were James Keiller's and Sons, established in 1795, which pioneered commercial marmalade production, and the publishing firm DC Thomson, which was founded in the city in 1905. Dundee was said to be built on the 'three Js': Jute, Jam and Journalism.

The jute industry fell into decline in the early 20th century, partly due to reduced demand for jute products and partly due to an inability to compete with the emerging industry in Calcutta. This gave rise to unemployment levels far in excess of the national average, peaking in the inter-war period, but major recovery was seen in the post-war period, thanks to the arrival first of American light engineering companies like Timex and NCR, and subsequent expansion into microelectronics.

Cemeteries (Civil)
The Howth


 * Meadowside
 * Dundee DD1 1LN

Balgay Cemetery


 * 153 Blackwood Ct
 * Dundee DD2 2EG

Pitkerro Grove Cemetery


 * Drumsturdy Rd
 * Dundee DD5 3NY

Birkhill Cemetery


 * Templeton Rd
 * Birkhill
 * Dundee DD3 0QH

Parishes
For outlying parishes in the Durham County area, please go to: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Durham_Parishes

Non Conformists
The following other Christian denominations and religions are also represented in Reading:


 * Baptists
 * Evangelical
 * Christian Spritualist
 * Christian Science
 * Destiny Church
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Jehovah's Witness
 * Jubilee Church
 * Methodists
 * New Life Church
 * Roman Catholics
 * Seventh Day Adventist
 * The Vine

Non Christian populations include:


 * Buddhists
 * Jews
 * Muslims
 * Sikhs

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths, have been kept by the UK government from July 1837 to the present day.

Stockton on Tees has its own BMD records office as follows:

The Register Office


 * Nightingale House
 * Balaclava St
 * Stockton-on-Tees TS18 2AL
 * Phone: +44 1642 527720

Other sources follow:


 * bmd-certificates


 * Durham County Records


 * ukbmd.org

Local Histories

 * This is Stockton


 * localhistories.org: Stockton


 * Stockton on Tees; A Pictorial History by Robert Woodhouse


 * A century of Stockton on Tees by Charlie Emett

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Michelin Maps: Stockton-on-Tees


 * oldmapsonline: Stockton on Tees


 * streetmapof: Stockton


 * visionofbritain.org: Stockton Gazetteer


 * Cassell's Gazetteer of Britain; Stockton

Newspapers

 * Gazette Live


 * The Northern Echo


 * The Darlington and Stockton Times

Occupations
The major industries in Stockton that included ship building and repairing, heavy engineering as well as steel and chemicals manufacturing, declined drastically during the latter half of the twentieth century, along with that of the surrounding Teesside area.

Stockton still has a number of branches of large industries, such as the Huntsman Corp, a USA based chemical company with more than 10,000 employees worldwide. The Stockton Division is the major European branch of the company.

Stockton has a number of companies in the Broadband and Internet and electronics area such as United Direct, with more than 100 employees, and always advertising for growth positions. Others include Web.com, and Maplin electronics.

In the food distribution arena, the major player in the area is ASDA, now a division of WALMART, the huge USA based grocery and mega-market company. However Morrison's and Sainsbury's also have large regional distribution centers here.

Stockton also has a number of smaller specialty engineering companies residual of past areas of expertise. These are active in the automotive aftermarket and design, solar engineering solutions, Siemens, Cummins Engineering, etc.

Societies

 * Cleveland FHS org


 * forebears.com: Stockton upon Tees


 * Northumberland and Durham FHS


 * ancestor-search: Durham FHS

Archives

 * Tees-side archives


 * The National Archives: Tees-side


 * County Durham Archives


 * Newspaperachives: free search County Durham

Web Sites

 * Stockton-on-Tees wikipedia


 * Stockton on Tees Town Council


 * Durham County Council