1. The Old Parish Registers (OPRs) record births/baptisms, marriages, and burials before the introduction of compulsory registration on 1st January 1855. These registers were compiled by parish ministers on a voluntary basis. There are numerous gaps in these registers. It should be noted that in most Orkney parishes burials were not recorded.

• Details of the surviving OPRs for individual parishes can be found on the individual parish or island pages.
• Microfilms of the original OPRs are available in the Orkney Archives, in Edinburgh at New Register House and the Scottish Genealogical Society, in London at the Society of Genealogists, and as microfiches or CD-ROM at LDS Family History Centers worldwide.
• In Edinburgh, research can be done at the General Register Office for Scotland, GRO(S), in New Register House.
• The GRO(S) index to births/baptisms and marriages in the OPRs is available online at the Scotland's People website. This is a fee-based service, even for searching the indexes, but very convenient. You need a credit card in order to register. Once you have located the records you want it is also possible to order complete extracts of those records online.
• The Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) produces an index to the births/baptisms and marriages listed in the OPRs. It is known as the IGI (International Genealogical Index) and is available on microfiche at many public libraries and at LDS Family History Centres worldwide. Hard-copy print-outs can be purchased at some LDS centres.
  The IGI includes all the OPR births/baptisms and marriages for Orkney parishes.
  It can be accessed online free of charge.
  Most LDS centres also have microfiche copies of the indexes to civil registrations of births and marriages for the period 1855-1875 and for the year 1881.
  It should be noted that
  • The IGI contains some pre-1855 material and some post-1855 material resulting from private research.
  • many entries in the OPRs contain home addresses and the names of witnesses at baptisms and marriages but that such details are not carried forward to the IGI.
  • the spelling of a surname could vary from time to time and from parish to parish.
  • both GRO(S) and IGI indexes are subject to copying errors.
• Mike Bostwick has put the records of 16,796 Orkney marriages and baptisms on his website.
• Records of non-conformist churches are held at the National Records of Scotland .

2. Minutes and other records of Synods, Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions of the Established Church of Scotland and the Free and Secession Churches.

• Details vary from parish to parish. Kirk Session minutes include references to adulterers and illegitimate conceptions. Many include lists of communicants and of the poor. Some include registers of mortcloth dues and burials additional to those listed in the OPRs.
• These records are held by the Orkney Archives. Microfilm copies of most are available at the National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh.
• A very useful website belonging to Meg Greenwood displays material of genealogical interest taken from the records of Free Church congregations in some Orkney parishes. At present only the parishes of Orphir and Stenness are covered.

3. Minutes and other records of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and of the Catholic, Episcopal and other churches.

• These are held by the National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh.

• Registers of the Church of Scotland prior to 1855 are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh (see also the GRO tutorial). Copies can also be seen at LDS family history centres around the world.
  Church of Scotland records after that date, as well as records of a number of non-conformist churches (e.g. Catholic, Episcopalian, Free Church) are usually held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh. Baptisms and marriages in the Church of Scotland parish registers before 1855 have been indexed and these indexes may be consulted at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, in LDS family history centres around the world, and also online through ScotlandsPeople, which also provides digitised images of records (for a fee).
• Old Parish Registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1553-1854 can be consulted as digital images, either by visiting the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh or through the pay-per-view website ScotlandsPeople.
• List of the Old Parochial Registers. This list is based on the printed Detailed List of the Old Parochial Registers of Scotland which was first published in 1872. It provides a basic reference guide for identifying the dates for the births/baptisms, marriages/proclamations of marriage and deaths/burials in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs) held by the National Records of Scotland. Three appendices are also provided which list: (1) Church of Scotland records in the National Records of Scotland (formerly the Scottish Record Office and the National Archives of Scotland) containing pre-1855 birth, death and marriage entries. (2) Kirk session and other material found in the OPRs. (3) Miscellaneous records containing entries from Non-Conformist churches relevant to the OPRs. For a printed guide to the above see The Parishes, Registers & Registrars of Scotland edited by S.M. Spiers and published by the Scottish Association of Family History Societies. This also contains parish maps for each county and a list of addresses for local Register Offices (see also the Civil Registration section).
• See the Excerpt from Jock Tamson's bairns: a history of the records of the General Register Office for Scotland by Cecil Sinclair Edinburgh, 2000, provided by the National Records of Scotland.
• The Kirk Session of a parish consists of the minister of the parish and the elders of the congregation. It looks after the general wellbeing of the congregation and, particularly in centuries past, parochial discipline. Most Kirk Session records are held in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh and can be fascinating. For more information on this see Anne Gordon's Candie for the Foundling published by the Pentland Press in 1992. ISBN 1 872795 75 7 (720 pages).
• Church Court Records Online In partnership with several local authority and university archives in Scotland, National Records of Scotland (NRS) look after the records of Scotland's presbyterian church courts. The records consist of the minutes and accounts of kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. They also contain a wide variety of other documents.
• To assist in the identification of the different entities that have existed during the turbulent history of the Church of Scotland, there is a diagram and set of notes, based on those originally compiled by Linda Merle, which may be of assistance.
• Quaker Records in Scotland.
• Notes on Quaker ancestors in Scotland provided by the Quaker FHS.
• Scottish Catholic Archives at Columba House, Edinburgh holds some church records and has information about others. Most dioceses have deposited their historical records at Columba House, and retain only current records. Much material from Scots Catholic Colleges overseas is at Columba House. The Archdiocese of Glasgow and the Diocese of Paisley retain their historic records. At Columba House are Status Animarum from the early 19th Century (e.g. Glasgow 1808) - lists of all Catholics and in some counties (mainly in North East Scotland, e.g. Morayshire) lists of everyone. The National Records of Scotland has photocopies of all pre-1855 Roman Catholic parish registers.
• The LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) have now provided online search facilities for the IGI (International Genealogical Index). Hugh Wallis has provided a search facility which greatly simplifies searching by batch number. See also Finding LDS Batch Numbers. Note that on September 1, 2017, FamilySearch discontinued its microfilm distribution services.
• Scottish Jewish Archive Centre is centralising Jewish records, building databases, and recording burials in Jewish cemeteries (or sections of cemeteries). Numbers of records are quite small.
• Methodist records are in a number of archives. Generally records of rural churches went to university archives, records of city churches went to local authority archives.
• Episcopal Church records also are in a variety of archives. It is best to search at the National Register of Archives to locate them. Some are at the National Records of Scotland.
• After 1753, when English law forbad irregular marriages, a number of people who objected to marrying in a church wed in border centres where the couple's own consent to marriage before witnesses was legal under Scottish Law. Gretna is the most famous of these. Marriages were conducted by self appointed ministers at the border Toll booths along the few roads into Scotland.
• Irregular Border and Scottish Runaway Marriages are addressed on the National Records of Scotland website.

Batch numbers are used to identify the sources of records included on the I.G.I. (International Genealogical Index). Now that the L.D.S. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) have provided online search facilities to this unparalleled resource, but without as yet providing means of limiting name searches to particular localities, batch numbers have become a valuable search aid because they can be used on the >Custom Search page to restrict searches to a particular parish. Unfortunately the L.D.S. have not provided an online index to batch numbers, and unofficial listings, while useful, are very far from complete and are not completely accurate. However, by following the steps below, it is possible to use the existing L.D.S. place search facility to determine batch numbers yourself:-

Please note: batch numbers for entries extracted from Scottish Civil Registration records (1855-1875) do not appear to be available online.

Church

Records

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General

• Find a Church - a Directory of Christian Churches in the UK and Ireland, providing basic location and contact information, details of services, etc. 
• Free searches of parish and nonconformist registers are provided by FreeReg.
• FamilySearch's page on IGI Batch Numbers for the British Isles and North America
• Hugh Wallis provides a batch number search facility, which greatly simplifies the task of searching the I.G.I. for records from particular churches (useful, for example, in case of strangely-spelled names). A further batch number site is provided by Archer Software.
• The LDS also supply additional church baptism and marriage records on their British Vital Records Index (2nd Edition) CD. A breakdown of the number of records included on the BVRI from each county and parish is provided on the Genoots website.(archived copy)
• Glossary of terms related to church records, by Martyn Parsons.
• The Official Non-Parochial BMD Records Service - a free index search facility for various unpublished registries from 1534 to 1865, from National Archives Refrences RG4 and RG5, with a pay-per-view access to the original records.
• The National Archives provides a Research Guide on Nonconformists - advice on TNA's holdings

Lyon-Turner, G. Original Records of Early Nonconformity Under Persecution and Indulgence - 3 vols. T. Fisher Unwin, London (1911) [Online copies: Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3]

Anglican

Two major marriage licence indexing projects: the Faculty Office Marriage Licence Index (of licences issued by the Master of Faculties of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the period 1714 to 1850), and the Vicar-General Marriage Licence Index (of licences issued by the Vicar-General of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the period 1701 to 1850 undertaken by the SoG are now on www.findmypast.co.uk.

• Free searches of parish registers are provided by FamilySearch.
• Commercial register search sites include Ancestry, TheGenealogist, and www.findmypast.co.uk.
• An article on clandestine marriages - by Jennifer M. Payne.

M.W. Foster. "A Comedy of Errors" or "The Marriage Records of England and Wales, 1837-1899", 19 Khouri Avenue, Wellington 6005, New Zealand, (1998) 223 p. [ISBN 0 473 05581 3]

Baptist

• The Baptist Historical Society - general information.
• The Catholic Archive Society website provides information about the Society and a full Catalogue of its publications.
• The Catholic Central Library has moved to Durham University library.
• Catholic Heritage - website of a project to provide a centralised access point to an online collection of Archive and Library catalogues within the Catholic Church

Breed, Geoffrey. My Ancestors were Baptists (4th ed.). Society of Genealogists (2002) 135 pp. [ISBN: 1903462525]
[". . . a history of the church plus valuable information on what records can be obtained. A complete listing of all Baptist churches and dates by county and appendices showing for instance the important collection in Dr Williams Library.."]

Congregationalists

• Surnam Index Online - a biographical index to the names of 32,000 Congregational Ministers from the mid-seventeenth century to 1972, with "where known, their dates, details of their education, ministries or other employment", provided by the Queen Mary Centre for Religion and Literature in English.

Clifford, David J.H. My ancestors were Congregationalists in England and Wales: how can I find out more about them?, Society of Genealogists (1997) 77 pp. [ISBN: 0946789460]
["Following a useful introduction this book comprises a location list by county of Independent and Congregationalist registers to 1850. Many exist outside the Public Record Office. Details of chapels where no registers have been located are also included."]

Huguenot

Randolph Vigne. Huguenot Family Research Made Easier, Genealogist's Magazine 27, 10 (June 2003) pp. 447-449.

Inghamites

Oates, P.J. My Ancestors Were Inghamites, Society of Genealogists (2003) 149 pp. [ISBN 1 903462 77 0]
["Includes a brief history of the Inghamites, sections on chapels and their records, index of people referred to in the conference books of the Inghamites Societies, various baptism and lists of members."]

Jewish

Joseph, Austen. My Ancestors were Jewish (3rd ed.), Society of Genealogists (2002) 60 pp. [ISBN: 1903462630]
["Covers the emancipation of Jews in Europe, marriage, death and burials, census, secular records, surname information, information on repositories, internet and more."]

Methodist

• The Methodist Archives and Research Centre is located at John Rylands University Library of Manchester, and provides the page Researching Methodist History.
• Information about Wesleyan Methodist ministers 1847-9 supplied by Bob Bester.

Leary, William. My Ancestors were Methodists (3rd ed.), Society of Genealogists (1997) 116 pp. [ISBN: 1859514030]
["The main text [of this 3rd edition] has not changed but the appendixes detailing holdings in the SoG have been revised and updated thoroughly. The book explains the records of Methodism and what to expect from these records."]