Fife, Scotland Genealogy

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

Background
Fife is a maritime county in the east of Scotland, bounded on the north by the river Tay, on the east by the German Ocean, on the south by the Firth of Forth, and on the west by the counties of Perth, Kinross, and Clackmannan. It is about 48 miles in length and 18 in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 504 square miles or 322,560 acres. It was anciently part of the extensive district of Ross, but after the union of the kingdoms of the Scots and the Picts in about the year 971, it was granted by Kenneth II to Macduff for his services in subjugating the Picts, and he was appointed hereditary thane of the lands he had helped conquer [for this reason, the county is still referred to as the Kingdom of Fife].

The county consists of 61 parishes and four civil districts of Cupar, Kirkcaldy, St. Andrew's and Dunfermline. Sheriff's courts are held at Cupar (the county town) for the first three and at Dunfermline for the last. Besides Cupar, the county contains fourteen royal burghs, nine other populous towns, and numerous smaller towns and villages. Many of the towns are seaports. The principal port is Kirkcaldy.

The population in 1851 was 140,140.

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 Fife 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 Fifeshire parish records are indexed in Fife, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records. This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Fife 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 the historic parishes for the county of Fife. Click on the parish name to see information about records. Click on this link for an outline map of the parishes of Fife.

Court Records
The county of Fife was in the Sheriff's court of Cupar (SC20). The Registers of Deeds for Sheriffs' courts contains much valuable information for family history research such as marriage contracts and deeds of 'disposal and settlement' (or assignment) of property, which both give names and relationships. The Fife Family History Society has created an index to the Fife Sheriff's Court Deeds for 1715-1809 that is searchable on their website at http://www.fifefhs.org/. In the website, click on the link for 'Records &amp; maps.

Maps

 * National Library of Scotland map collection

Probate Records
Probate records are those which deal with the settlement of the estate of a deceased person. In Scotland, until 1868, a person could only pass movable property such as household furniture, farm equipment, livestock, money and clothes through a document known as a 'testament.' Immovable property such as land was passed to the eldest son or heir through a document known as a 'Service of Heir,' which is not a record of probate. Read more about Scotland Probate Records.

Until 1823, the majority of the parishes of Fife were under the probate jurisdiction of the Commissary Court of St. Andrews (CC20). The Commissary Court of Dunkeld (CC7) had jurisdiction over the parishes of Aberdour, Leslie, and Strathmiglo, and the Commissary Court of Stirling (CC21) had jurisdiction over the parishes of Carnock, Saline, and Torryburn. Since 1823, the whole of the county has been under the jurisdiction of the Sheriff's Court of Fife at Cupar (SC20).

Probate records for 1513-1901 (including inventories of goods) are indexed online at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. You must register on the website but use of the index to probate records, called 'Wills &amp; Testaments,' is free. You may then purchase a copy of the document or, if the document is before 1823, it will be on microfilm at the Family History Library. To find the microfilm numbers, search in the library catalog for the 'Place' of Fife and the subject of 'Probate records.' Then click on the link to the records of the Commissariat of St. Andrews.

The library also has some post-1823 probate records for Fife. Look in the library catalog for the 'Place' of Fife and the subjects of 'Probate Records' and 'Probate Records - Indexes.

Poorhouse Records
There were three workhouses in this county:


 * Dunfermline
 * Dysart Combination
 * Kirkcaldy Combination

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

Societies
Tay Valley Family History Society 179 - 181 Princes Street Dundee DD4 6DQ Scotland, UK Tel: +44 (0)1382 461845

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

Websites

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