Orkney, Scotland Genealogy

''Scotland Orkney Islands

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



Orkney is a group of 67 islands forming a maritime county in the northern extremity of Scotland. Twenty-nine islands are inhabited, and the remainder are chiefly used as pasture for cattle. They are bounded on the north by the waters which divide Orkney from Shetland, on the east by the North Sea, on the south by the Pentland Firth, which separates the isles from Caithness, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. They extend about 50 miles in length and nearly 30 miles in breadth, comprising an area of 235 square miles or 150,000 acres.

At the time of the Roman occupation, northern Scotland, including the Orkneys, was occupied by the Picts who had them until about the year 876, when the forces of the King of Norway took the isles. They remained under Norwegian rule until 1472 following the marriage of James III of Scotland to Princess Margaret of Norway. When her father, Kristian I, could not pay her dowry, Norway forfeited both the Shetlands and the Orkneys to Scotland.

The county consists of 18 parishes, and it is united with Shetland under one sheriff with a sub-sheriff over each. Kirkwall is a royal burgh and the county town, and Stromness is a burgh of barony. There are several villages and some fishing stations on the coast.

The surface of the county on the east is level but the ground rises gradually towards the west, where the coasts are bounded by hills of considerable height. About 30,000 acres are arable, nearly an equal quantity is in meadow and pasture, 4000 in fresh-water lakes, and the remainder chiefly in heath, peat-moss, and undivided common. The land is mostly destitute of timber (except modern plantations) but the scenery is pleasing.

The crops are barley, oats, rye, flax, and a moderate portion of wheat, potatoes and turnips. Sheep, cattle, and horses are raised. The manufactures are stockings, blankets, coarse woollen cloth for home use, spinning of yarn and weaving of linen, thread, platting of straw for bonnets, and kelp. Beef, pork, salt, fish, butter, tallow, hides, oil, feathers, linen yarn and cloth, and kelp are exported. Other products are imported, so the several ports are busy. The building of boats and making of sails, nets, and cords are conducted. Cod and herring fisheries are extensive. Lobsters are also exported along with other sea-life and fresh-water fish.

The population of the islands in 1851 was 30,507.

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

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
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 Orkney 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, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1901, index and images, ($). Also at FindMyPast, index, ($). Also at Ancestry.com, index, ($).
 * Scotland Census, 1911, index and images, ($).

Parishes
Some of the Orkney parish records are indexed in Orkney, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.
 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Caithness 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 and island of Orkney. Click on a parish name to see information about records.

Maps
Click here to see an outline map of the parishes of Orkney.

Poorhouse Records
Orkney Combination

Websites

 * Orkney Resources and help pages on
 * RootsChat Orkney Resources and help pages. (Free).
 * www.ancestralorkney.com/links.html

Other Helpful Works
"Early Congregational Independency in Orkney" by Rev. Dr William D McNaughton. 2006. Gives history of churches and those involved c. 1790-1870

[Return to county list.]