Online access to about 10,000 volumes representing some of Scotland’s most important church records will be available at Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives at the end of October.
In May 2003, the National Archives of Scotland, under an agreement with the Church of Scotland and Family Search, began the digital capture of the records of kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly (from the sixteenth century to 1901) deposited in the NAS and other Scottish archives.
The digitisation project encompasses a wide range of records created by the four levels of the church courts, including minute books, act books, proclamation registers, communion rolls, seat rent books, poor relief accounts etc. It also includes the records of secession churches which later rejoined the Church of Scotland. These records constitute a major body of historical information and are used by a wide variety of professional and amateur historians.
Archive staff will be demonstrating this online resource at Union Square in Aberdeen on Thursday 28th so make sure you come along!