New church court records now available on ScotlandsPeople

The ScotlandsPeople website has added nearly 4,000 new volumes of Church of Scotland.

The ScotlandsPeople website has added nearly 4,000 new volumes of Church of Scotland records, totaling approximately 290,000 digital images. This release builds on the 2021 upload of kirk session minute books and accounts and continues the effort to make church records accessible online.

This update, which includes over 3,000 kirk session records, also introduces online access to records of presbyteries, synods, and the General Assembly for the first time. These records, spanning nearly 350 years of Scottish history from the 1560s to 1900, are now searchable and viewable for free, with images available for download at two credits per image. The records encompass minute books, accounts, cash books, communion rolls, seat rents, poor relief, education records, and many other types of documents created by church courts.

For further details on these records, refer to the guidance on church court records, kirk session records, and utilizing Virtual Volumes on ScotlandsPeople. Their article on the General Assembly provides comprehensive information about its history and its function as the Church of Scotland's highest court.

The ScotlandsPeople website serves as the official platform of the Scottish Government for accessing government records and archives.

Each year, it is utilized by hundreds of thousands of individuals to obtain copies of official certificates and to conduct research in areas such as family history, biography, local history, and social history.