Inverness-shire, Scotland Genealogy

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

Background
Inverness is an extensive county in the north of Scotland, bounded on the north by Ross-shire and the Moray Firth, on the east by the counties of Nairn, Elgin, Banff, and Aberdeen, on the south by Perthshire and the county of Argyll, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 90 miles in length and nearly 80 in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 7200 square miles or 4,608,000 acres, exclusive of the several islands attached to it.

The county was orginally the western portion of the ancient province of Moray and was inhabited by the Picts. The city of Inverness (the county town) may have been the residence of the Pictish kings.

The county contains 45 parishes and four districts/sub-sheriff courts of Inverness, Fort William, Skye, and Long Island. It also contains several villages.

The surface of the county is strikingly diversified by wild and lofty moutains interspersed with deep and narrow glens, and by numerous ridges of hills inclosing valleys of various width and aspect. The coast is indented with a variety of inlets from the sea, forming salt-water lochs. The county includes the Isle of Skye, part of Lewis, North and South Uist, Benbecula, Barra, Eigg, Eriskay, Bernera, and others of the Hebrides.

Lochs or lakes are a very important feature of the county, chief among them being Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy, situated in the valley of Glenmore. Not more than one-twelfth of the land is under cultivation, the remainder being either covered with heath or in mountain pasture. The arable lands produce excellent crops of wheat, barley, oats, etc., and great quantities of potatoes are raised. Vast numbers of cattle and more so of sheep are raised. Swine and horses are also raised.

The whole county appears to have been at a remote period covered with woods, and there are still thousands of acres in woods. Slate is quarried and shipped, as is also granite. There are lead-ore works. The principal manufactures are hemp, thread, kelp, and bricks and tiles; there are bleaching and print fields, tanneries, breweries and distilleries. The rivers abound with salmon and there are valuable salmon-fisheries. There are also herring-fisheries. The great Caledonian canal intersects the county from north-east to south-west and connects the German and Atlantic Oceans. It provides navigation for ships and conveyance of produce.

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 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 Inverness-shires- 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, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1861, no images. Also at, index, ($). 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
Some of the Inverness-shire parish records are indexed in Inverness, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Inverness 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 Inverness. Click on the parish name to see information about records.

Directories
Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, Post Office Directories are avilable online. The directories available for Inverness are:

1873-1912: These are available in either PDF format or viewable online. (Some years are missing)

Maps
Click here to see an outline map of the parishes of Inverness-shire.


 * 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 were three workhouses in this county:


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

Lochaber Archive Centre West Highland College Carmichael Way, Fort William PH33 6FF Scotland Tel: 01397 701942

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

Lochaber & North Argyll Family History Group c/o Alisdair Campbell 9 Victoria Road FORT WILLIAM Inverness-shire PH33 6BP Scotland

Websites

 * Genealogical Resource for the Hebridean Islands of Scotland ($) - http://www.hebridespeople.com/