Birsay parish records

Birsay records

Lookup searches – Access records in Scottish archives for ancestors in this parish (e.g. Kirk Session Records). Available from £1 a name a year.

Poor Law appeals – Indexed Poor Law appeals with the option to order images of records.

Asylum records – Index to the General Register of Lunatics in Asylums

School records – Index to School Leaving Certificate Examination results

Anatomy Registers – Index to the records of the Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland

Birth records with no father’s name – Hit a brick wall with no father named in a birth record? Help is at hand: see our list for this parish below.

Asylum records – Index to the General Register of Lunatics in Asylums

Male Heads of Families – Free transcripts of rolls of male heads of families from the 1830s

Kirk Sessions Index – Free extracts from Kirk Session records

Lookups

The records of the Kirk Session contain a variety of documents which detail many aspects of the daily lives of all types of people throughout Scotland from the 16th century onwards. We are pleased to be able to offer a search service in some of the records available for this parish. We will search for a given name in any of the record sets in the table below, and provide you with transcripts of any matching entries for just £1 per name per year.

We do not currently have any lookups available for this parish.

Board of Supervision poor relief appeals

The Board of Supervision was established under the 1845 Poor Law Act. One of its tasks was to hear appeals by paupers against inadequate poor relief granted by Parochial Boards. These appeals were recorded in the Board of Supervision minutes. Cases were often heard over an extended period. The minutes may contain a variety of information, including about other family members, medical conditions and other circumstances. For more information about these records, see here.

We are pleased to be able to offer to obtain images of the minutes for each appeal, at the following rates:

£3 for a single minute
£6 for up to 3 minutes for a single case
£9 for any single case with more than 3 minutes (some cases have as many as 8 minutes)

We have indexed these records, and list the cases for this parish below. Just click on the Order images link to order images of the relevant minutes. Please note that as these minutes may need to be filmed specially, it may take up to a week before we can supply them.

Poor law appeals
Name	Address	Year(s)/ minutes	Order images	Deliverance
Bessie FRASER		1876 (2)	Order images	Refused
William FRASER		1875 (1)	Order images	Refused

Sheriff Court paternity decrees

Single mothers often took the fathers of their children to court for child support. Such cases were known as filiation and aliment cases. The court could order the father to provide maintenance payments to the mother. If the mother won her case, the court would issue a decree, which would allow the mother to enforce payment of aliment. We have indexed all the records of such cases held by the National Records of Scotland from at least 1855 to 1880, and can provide digital images of the records. To order your copy, simply click on the Order now link in the table below.

We have not currently found any decrees for this parish.

School Leaving Certificate Exams

This is an index to the registers of school leaving certificate examination results (NRS Reference ED36). We do not currently have any records for this parish.

Anatomy register

This is an index to the registers of the Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland (NRS Reference MH1/1-MH1/30). We do not currently have any records for this parish.

List of Births with no Father's name 1855-1874

Your research hit a brick wall when you discovered a birth record missing this vital name? Choose Find the Father by any birth below to start breaking down that barrier today with our FREE search service. Where we've already identified the father, click on the Father Found link to order a copy of the record naming the father. For births outwith this period, click here.

Find the father
Child name	Date of birth	Mother name	Order
George FINDLATER	3 September 1869	Isabella FINDLATER	Find the father
William FINDLATER	21 August 1864	Janet Or Jessie FINDLATER	Find the father
Catherine Marwick GUTHRIE	18 July 1860	Mary GUTHRIE	Find the father
Maria JOHNSTON	25 November 1857	Catherine JOHNSTON	Find the father
Thomas JOHNSTON	10 November 1864	Anne JOHNSTON	Find the father
Donaldina Graham KIRKNESS	17 March 1857	Margaret KIRKNESS	Find the father
Helen LEASK	28 May 1866	Catherine LEASK	Find the father
Bruce MOAR	3 April 1871	Catherine MOAR	Find the father
Robert MOAR	20 March 1864	Margaret MOAR	Find the father
James William PHILLIPS	10 February 1869	Jessie PHILLIPS	Find the father
James SIM	6 October 1868	Jane SIM	Find the father
Margaret SPENCE	29 September 1865	Anne SPENCE	Find the father
William SPENCE	28 August 1874	Isabella SPENCE	Find the father
Isabella Linklater STANGER	4 July 1868	Georgina STANGER	Find the father
Jane STANGER	18 April 1857	Jane STANGER	Find the father
Jane STANGER	7 November 1859	Betsy STANGER	Find the father
Mary Anne STANGER	7 February 1856	Elizabeth STANGER	Find the father
Charles TAYLOR	31 December 1856	Margaret TAYLOR	Find the father
James William TAYLOR	17 December 1863	Elizabeth TAYLOR	Find the father
Margaret Stanger TAYLOR	2 January 1871	Mary TAYLOR	Find the father

General Register of Lunatics

This index shows patients from this parish admitted to asylums. We have not yet identified any patients from this parish.

Rolls of Male Heads of Families

In 1834, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passed the Veto Act, removing the absolute right of landowners to appoint ministers to their parish. The Act gave male heads of families who were communicants with the parish the right to veto the appointment of a new minister if a majority of them objected. To this end, the Assembly instructed kirk sessions to draw up rolls of the male heads of families in each parish. We have transcribed the surviving rolls, and are publishing them here. They are significant as they pre-date the earliest nominal census, which took place in 1841.

No Roll of Male Heads of Families has yet been found for this parish

Kirk Session Records Index

Use the name links below to go to the entries for the person you are interested in. We have selected 1832 as an example year for parishes across Scotland. If you would like more information about the existence of Kirk Session minutes for this or another parish or would like to search for particular people in the minutes please contact us.

We have not yet indexed any Kirk Session records for this parish.