***LINKS to Wigtownshire Resources***

[RootsChat]

Some links to Wigtownshire resources to aid research:

To help find things more quickly, resources have been grouped in categories.  The links here have been compiled from topics submitted by RootsChatters. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed     

New Links: If you have any useful links that can be included here, please start a new topic and a moderator will transfer the link to this topic. Broken Links: Occasionally, links change or are no longer available. If you find a link on this page that is no longer available, just click on the 'Report to Moderator' button on the r/h side bottom corner, with a brief description and that link can be modified or changed.

Archives

• Local Studies, Archives and Family History - www.dumgal.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2297   
• See here for comprehensive listing of archives - www.scan.org.uk/knowledgebase/gazetteer/county-Wigtown.htm and also www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/WIG/Wigtown/WigtownRecords.html

Birth, Marriage and Death Records

Some guides here on RootsChat to help you:

• Where to start with Scottish Research? - www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,24468.0.html
• Getting the best out of Scotlands People - www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,562668.0.html
• The Scottish Way of Birth and Death...(1855-1939)  www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,578172.0.html

Also, worth seeing is:

• Wigtownshire Free Press Announcements for Births, Marriages, & Deaths - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ainsty/wfp/intro.html Also, see http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ainsty/bmd/intro.html

Burials and Monumental Inscriptions

• A selection of Kirkyards - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ainsty/chapple/mi2.html
• Historic Churches and Churchyards, Dumfries & Galloway - www.historicchurchyards.co.uk/historic-info
• Some OPR death/burial entries for the Parish of Leswalt, 1815-43 - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~leighann/parishes/leswalt/death/intro.html
• General photographs of churchyards and graveyards - http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dfsgal/index.htm
• Miscellaneous Dumfries & Galloway graveyard inscriptions - http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scottish/D-GInscriptions.html?o_xid=0022468880&o_lid=0022468880&o_xt=22468880
• A wide selection of Monumental Inscription Booklets (MIs) available to purchase directly from the Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society - www.dgfhs.org.uk/publications.asp

[MonicaL]

Census

• Freecen https://www.freecen.org.uk/cgi/search.pl now has 100% coverage for the 1841, 1851, 1861, and 1871 Census for Wigtownshire.
  Check here for updates www.freecen.org.uk/statistics.html). These are transcripts compiled by volunteers.
• Original images for the 1841 - 1911 censuses are only available from the pay to view site www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
• The 1851 census is also available free here www.dgcommunity.net/historicalindexes/default.aspx
• Census of Portpatrick by A Urquhart, 1832-34 - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~leighann/census/urquhart.html
• Researchers often look to what may be available before the start of the censuses as we know them, from 1841. This provides an excellent summary of what is available across the whole of Scotland and locations of archive documents or material - www.myainfolk.com/Resources_files/Scottish_Population_Listings_Pre1841.pdf

Family History Groups and Societies

• Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society - www.dgfhs.org.uk/

History and General information

• The Wigtownshire Pages - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ainsty/index-2.html
                                 Various Parish records , BMD's , MI's , Military records , links and information.
  
• Wigtownshire GENUKI pages - www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/WIG/index.html
• Wigtownshire familysearch.wiki pages - https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Wigtonshire,_Scotland and https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Category:Wigtonshire
• Wigtownshire Wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigtownshire
• 'A Beginner's Tutorial to Research in Wigtownshire' - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~leighann/tutorial/research.html

Images and Photograph Archives and Collections

• Dumfries and Galloway : Through the Lens. Over 7,000 images - www.dgttl.co.uk/
• The Geograph Britain and Ireland project has a growing collection of photographs - www.geograph.org.uk
• National Library of Scotland - Scottish Screen Archives  http://ssa.nls.uk/search.cfm?search_mode=Browse&sid=03.01&location=43|Wigtownshire
• The George Washington Wilson Collection of Photographs - Wigtownshire - www.rootschat.com/links/0p2c/  Main index for the Collection for Scotland www.rootschat.com/links/0o7x/
• Further selection of photographs by town here (Photos - The Beauty of Wigtownshire) - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ainsty/site/sitemap.html

[MonicaL]

Maps

• County maps of Scotland - www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/
• Parish maps of Wigtownshire - www.scotlandsfamily.com/parish-map-wigtown.htm
• National Library of Scotland maps - http://maps.nls.uk/towns/index.html#wigtown and http://maps.nls.uk/os/index.html
• Further maps here - Thirteen Maps of Wigtownshire from 1654 to 1900 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/SCO_pages/wig.htm
• Further collection of maps from here - www.british-history.ac.uk/map.aspx?pubid=270
• Great new (modern) mapping site, 'Where's the Path?' - Free Ordnance Survey Mapping side by side with Google Aerial Imagery. Just insert place name on the l/h side box at the top, the select a place http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm Great mapping site for those more remote places! Also covers more populated areas.

Miscellaneous – a number of links by place and some more general information

• Stranraer, History and Heritage - www.stranraer.org/sti_visit/historyheritage.html
• The Whithorn Trust - www.whithorn.com/index.asp
• Whithorn: Towns and Villages - www.whithorn.info/community/index.asp
• Wigtown Cultural Heritage Project - www.wigtown-booktown.co.uk/heritage/index.asp

More general info here:

• Scottish Post Office directories - www.nls.uk/family-history/directories/post-office A trade directory for Wigtown 1912 can be seen here http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scottish/TradeDirectory1912.html  New release of later directories here http://archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Ascottishdirectories&sort=-publicdate
• Historical Shipping Registers for Stranraer and Wigtown - www.dgcommunity.net/historicalindexes/shipping.aspx
• Museums in Dumfries and Galloway - www.dumfriesmuseum.demon.co.uk/frames.html

Newspapers

• A guide to Scottish Newspaper Indexes by the National Library of Scotland www.nls.uk/collections/newspapers/indexes/index.cfm
• New resource for the UK, pay to view, some general info available from the general search index info - www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Workhouses

• Workhouse Locations, Scottish Poorhouses - Wigtownshire.

Rhins of Galloway Stranraer
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Wigtownshire

1881 Census of the Residents of Dalrymple St Inch Stranraer
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Wigtownshire/Wigtownshire1881.shtml

• A list of poor rolls, registers of poor, volumes of poor relief applications and various other records containing lists of paupers for parishes in Scotland. A great summary of what is actually available by parish and where to look for the records that remain - www.myainfolk.com/Resources_files/Records_of_the_Scottish_Poor.pdf