Scottish Catholic records now available at local family history centres

The Scottish Roman Catholic parish records, which have been previously digitised and accessible either on the ScotlandsPeople website or at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh (www.scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk), are now also available at the local family history centres across the country which provide access to the same computer system. Previously the records have only been accessible via the system in Edinburgh, making this yet another welcome development across the country for family historians.

Having been alerted to this yesterday, I have just contacted the Burns Monument Centre in Kilmarnock (www.burnsmonumentcentre.co.uk), which has confirmed that this is certainly happening there. I have also tried to confirm with Glasgow Genealogy Centre - but there is only so long you wait on the phone in a queue to the sounds of the same piece of classical music playing over and over! If you wish to access the Catholic records at your local family history/archive centre, I would advise you call in advance to double check that they too now have them.

(With thanks to Chris Halliday at Highland Archives, and Ian at the Burns Monument Centre)

Chris

My new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, is now available from Pen and Sword. My next Pharos Scottish course, Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers, starts May 15th - see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/scotland-1750-1850-beyond-oprs-starts.html. Time to smash a few brick walls...!