Renfrewshire, Scotland Genealogy

Scotland Renfrewshire

Guide to  ancestry, family history and genealogy parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



Introduction
Renfrewshire is a county in the west of Scotland, bounded on the north and north-east by the Firth of Clyde and the river Clyde, which separate if from Dumbartonshire, on the east by the county of Lanark, on the south by Ayrshire, and on the west also by the firth, which divides it from the county of Argyll. However, a part of the parish of Renfrew, and therefore of the county, lives on the north side of the river Clyde. The county is about 31 miles in length and 13 miles in extreme breadth, comprising an area of 241 square miles or 154,240 acres.

After the defeat of the Picts by Kenneth II, and the union of the Scottish and Pictish kingdoms, the ancient inhabitants of the area became identified in time with the Scots. In the reign of David I (1124-1153), Walter, son of Alan, retiring from North Wales, settled in this district. He was appointed the steward of Scotland and took the surname of Stewart or Stuart, and was the ancestor of the Stuarts kings of Scotland. The district of Renfrew anciently formed part of the county of Lanark, but in 1404, Robert III erected the lands of Renfrew, with the other estates of the Stuart family, into a principality which became hereditary in the eldest sons of the Scottish kings, and the barony of Renfrew was separated from the shire of Lanark and constituted an independent county.

The county contains 20 parishes with parts of others. For civil purposes it is divided into the upper and lower wards. The sheriff courts are held at Paisley and Greenock. The quarter-sessions are held at Renfrew which is the shire town and the only royal burgh. The county also contains three market towns, several populous villages, and numerous smaller villages and hamlets.

The surface of the county is varied with hills in the west and south-west. The north-eastern and central portions, though generally even, are diversified with numerous detached hills rising from the plains. The south-east is also hilly. There are several beautiful valleys watered by the principal rivers. A large portion of the best land is in grass and dairies occupy the farmers' principal attention, for the supply of the inhabitants. The lands in tillage produce abundant crops of excellent grain of all kinds, with potatoes, turnips, and green vegetables.

There is coal, limestone, freestone, and whinstone, all of which are extensively wrought, especially coal. Various important manufactures are largely carried on at Paisley, Greenock, and numerous other places in the county. There is considerable traffic at the several ports of the Clyde. There are excellent roads and several canals and railways running through the county.

The population in 1851 was 155,072.

(Source: Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, 2nd ed., 1851.  Family Hisotry Library book .)

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
The library also has a collection of census surname indexes for different places within Lanarkshire. Click here to see a table listing these other census surname indexes that are available at the library.
 * Scotland Census, 1891, no images. Also at FindMyPast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).== Census ==
 * 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, 1901, index and images, ($). Also at FindMyPast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1911, index and images, ($).

= Directories =

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

1829-1912: These are available in either PDF format or viewable online.

= Parishes = Some of the Renfrewkshire parish records are indexed in *Renfrewshire, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Lanark 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 Renfrew with their parish numbers. Click on a parish name to see information about records.

Maps
Click on the map at the right to see a larger version, and click again on the larger map. Next, click on the ‘Expand’ button when it appears in the lower right-hand corner of the map.



Click here to see an outline map of the parishes of Renfrewshire.


 * 1885 County Maps: Renfrewshire Eastern Section | Renfrewshire Western Section

Poorhouse Records
There are five poorhouses:

Abbey/

Busby/

Greenock/

Paisley/

Renfrewshire/

Cemeteries
Renfrewshire Monumental Inscriptions: pre-1855 familysearch.org/search/catalog/1849990

Helpful Websites

 * Renfrewshire Resources and help pages on RootsChat Renfrewshire Resources and help pages. (Free).
 * Renfrewshire Family History Society www.renfrewshirefhs.co.uk/

[Return to county list.]