Ross and Cromarty, Scotland Genealogy

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

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History[edit | edit source]

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.[1][2]

ScotlandsPeople: An Important Online Source[edit | edit 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:

  • Statutory Registers
  • Old Parish Registers
  • Catholic Parish Registers
  • CPR Others
  • Census
  • Valuation Rolls
  • Soldiers’ Wills
  • Wills & Testaments
  • Coats of Arms

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[edit | edit source]

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 1881.  Click here for other census indexes available at the library.

Church Records[edit | edit source]

Civil Registration or Statutory Registers[edit | edit source]

For details on information found in statutory registers and other methods of searching them, see Scotland Statutory Registers.

Refer to the ScotlandsPeople Wiki article.
Images and Indexes Available at ScotlandsPeople Website ($)
Images-Years
Indexes
Births 1855-1910 ◊ScotlandsPeople Website has indexes to 2012.
Marriages 1855-1935
Deaths 1855-1960

Parishes[edit | edit source]

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 & 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.

Parish No. Parish No.
Alness 57 Knockbain (formerly Kilmuir-Wester & Suddy) 73
Applecross 58 Lochalsh 74
Avoch 59 Lochbroom 75
Contin 60 Lochcarron 76
Cromarty 61 Logie-Easter 77
Cullicudden -- see Resolis 79 Logie-Wester -- see Urquhart 84
Dingwall 62 Nigg 78
Edderton 63 Resolis (formerly Kirkmichael & Cullicudden) 79
Fearn 64 Rosemarkie or Fortrose 80
Fodderty 65 Rosskeen 81
Gairloch 66 Shieldaig -- see Applecross 58
Glenshiel 67 Suddy -- see Knockbain 73
Killearnan 68 Tain 82
Kilmuir-Easter 69 Tarbat 83
Kilmuir-Wester -- see Knockbain 73 Urquhart & Logie-Wester 84
Kiltearn 70 Urray 85
Kincardine 71 Barvas(Insular) 86
Kirkmichael -- see Resolis 79 Lochs(Insular) 87
Kishorn -- see Applecross 58 Stornoway (Insular) 88
Kintail 72 Uig (Insular) 89

Maps[edit | edit source]

Poorhouse Records[edit | edit source]

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:

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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Samuel Lewis. Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, (London, England: S. Lewis and Co., 1846), 3 v.: 651, [FHL book 941 E5]. Digitized by FamilySearch International, FamilySearch.org, https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/216925 (accessed June 20, 2016).
  2. ↑ Samuel Lewis. "Renton - Ross & Cromarty," in A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, (London, 1846), 416-430. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/scotland/pp416-430 (accessed June 5, 2020).

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