I recently had a chance to talk with Raymond Evans, of Scotland's People. This government-owned web site has millions of Scottish birth, marriage and death records available online. The birth records are available from 1855 through 1907, marriage records are available from 1855 through 1953, and death records are available from 1855 through 1958. In most cases, the records are images of the original birth, death and death records starting in 1855.
The same site also has Scottish census records from 1851 through 1901 and also includes an excellent collection of parish records for many parishes for many years prior to 1855. The exact years available vary from parish to parish.
The same site also includes Scottish wills and testaments and even registered coats of arms.
Raymond described the services offered by Scotland's People, including a description of the various databases available and he also gave information on pricing. Raymond also announced that the images of the 1881 Scottish census records are about to appear online. (Previous online 1881 census records contained only transcriptions, not the original images.)
Roots Television recorded our conversation and has now placed it online. You can listen to and watch Robert Evans as he describes the many services available. To view the video, go to http://www.rootstelevision.com/players/player_conferences3.php?bctid=17059442001&bclid=10538975001.
You can find Scotland's People at http://www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk.
Don't forget that you can now watch Roots Television in full screen video. On the bottom of the video player, there is a rectangle with arrows coming out of the corners, to the left of the volume control. If you click that icon, you will blow the video up into full-screen. You can also press the ESCAPE key to go back to the smaller image mode.
