Page last updated on: Sunday, 6 August, 2017.

We have put together a note about where to look for local family history information.
Click on this link to have a look : DIY Family History Research.

All births, marriages and deaths (BMD) which have occurred in Scotland since 1855 have by law required to be formally certified. Custodian of this information is the General Registrar of Scotland (GROS) in Edinburgh. Indexes to this information are publicly available through the website www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk and copies of actual certificates can be downloaded as long as the certified event took place long enough ago.

Prior to 1855 births, marriages and deaths were recorded by churches in their Old Parish Registers. These records are incomplete because some OPR volumes have been lost and only those who attended the local parish church would provide the necessary details. This information is also downloadable from the scotlandspeople website.

Various attempts have been made in the past to collate OPR entries into bound volumes, but this information is limited and may only be reproduced under license from the GROS.

Gravestones are also a good source of information for births and deaths, as well as confirming family relationships. Girthon and Anwoth each have 2 graveyards, each parish having an 'old' and a 'new' graveyard. Photographs and transcriptions of all gravestones in these burial grounds can be found on our sister website www.kirkyards.co.uk.

BMD announcements made in newspapers are not copyright-protected. Some newspaper announcements relating to BMDs in Anwoth and Girthon for some years in the 1st half of the 20th Century will be added to this website shortly. Others from throughout the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright can be found on www.kirkcudbright.co.

More recent BMD announcements made in the Galloway News and Dumfries & Galloway Standard (seemingly since early 2009) have now been made available on-line, and can be accessed at www.iannounce.co.uk/Dumfries-and-Galloway/42.

We have recently had access to a copy of the Girthon Kirk Session notes from 1821 to 1863. These are notes from meetings between the minister and elders. Most of the issues concern sex outside marriage, which clearly becomes recognisable when the female produces a child. There are many instances where the two parties do not get married and the birth certificate of the child doesn't mention the father's name. These notes are therefore vitally important for the genealogist who wants to find the father of an illegitimate child. There are over 380 pages of such session notes which we have summarised for perusal.