Ross and Cromarty, Scotland Genealogy

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

History
Ross and Cromarty are two historical counties in the north of Scotland, under the jurisdiction of one sheriff, and have been considered one county since 1889. They are bounded on the north by Sutherlandshire, on the east by the German Ocean, on the south and south-east by Inverness-shire, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. They extend about 67 miles in length and 58 miles in breadth, comprising an area of 3799 square miles or 2,431,360 acres, of which 223,560 are Cromarty. Cromarty is a peninsula, called the Black Isle, which lies between the Cromarty and Moray Firths.

The combined counties consist of 31 parishes. They are under three sub-sheriffs who hold their courts at Cromarty and Tain, Dingwall and Fortrose, and Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. The royal burghs are Dingwall, Tain, and Fortrose, the market-towns are Cromarty and Stornoway, which are burghs of barony, and there are numerous smaller places.

Ross and Cromarty include the districts of Ardross, Easter Ross, Ardmeanach or the Black Isles, Kintail, Strathcarron, and the greater part of the island of Lewis. The population is 1851 was 78,685.

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 Ross and Cromarty 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
 * 1736 - 1990 - at FamilySearch — index

Parishes
Some of the Ross and Cromarty-shire parish records are indexed in Ross and Cromartys, Scotland, Extracted Parish Records.


 * This database is a collection of historical parish registers from the county of Ross and Cromarty 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 Ross &amp; Cromarty with their parish numbers. Click on a parish name to see information about records. Click this link for an outline map of the parishes of Ross and Cromarty.

Maps

 * 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:


 * Black Isle Combination (Fortrose)
 * Easter Ross Combination (Tain)
 * Lews 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
Scottish Genealogy Society 15 Victoria Terrace Edinburgh EH1 2JL Scotland Phone-0131 220 3677 Email enquiries@scotsgenealogy.com

Highland Family History Society Highland Archive and Registration Centre Bught Park Inverness Email info@highlandfamilyhistorysociety.org

Websites

 * Ross and Cromarty Resources and help pages on RootsChat Ross &amp; Cromarty Resources and help pages.


 * Ross & Cromarty Heritage