Have today received this helpful email from the Archives at Aberdeen:
The Kirk Sessions would be the main source we would point you to, but there are a couple of other options. Incidentally, we have access to the test site for the Kirk Sessions documents which you can access in our searchrooms if you live locally. The following records for Cruden Parish are available on this site:
· Kirk session minutes (1720-1792) (CH2/447/1)
· Kirk session minutes (1802-1837) accounts (1773-1800) (CH2/447/2)
· Kirk session minutes (1835-1844) (CH2/447/3)
· Kirk session minutes (1844-1867) and proclamations (1856-1866) (CH2/447/4)
· Kirk session accounts (1717-1772) (CH2/447/6)
· Parish church library minutes (1838-1847) (CH2/447/7)
· Register of baptisms (1851-1901) (CH2/447/9)
· Communion roll (1839-1845) (CH2/447/12)
· Communion roll (1876-1894) (CH2/447/13)
· Communion roll (1895-1907) (CH2/447/14)
· Kirk session minutes (1687-1688) (CH2/447/16)
Here at the Archives, we have Assessed Tax Reports for Aberdeenshire covering the period 1799 to 1832. These were compiled by the Aberdeenshire Commissioners of Supply for tax collection purposes, and only include those who would have been liable to pay taxes on the commodities covered (i.e. windows, houses, male servants, carriages, carts, carriage and riding horses, horses used in trade and husbandry, and dogs). More information and transcriptions of some of the reports are included on our website here:
http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/education_learning/local_history/archives/loc_cataloguesassessedtaxrolls.asp There are other, earlier, tax records for the county in the series AS/Acom/10 and AS/Acom/15 (you can see these in our online catalogue).
Another resource is our Militia records. These are detailed in our catalogue under the reference AS/AMil but there are transcriptions of some of the records, and more information on our website here:
http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/education_learning/local_history/archives/loc_cataloguesmilitia.asp There are also a number of sources for Aberdeenshire available on Scotland’s Places – for the period and location you are interested in it will largely be tax records.
Moving back into the 17th century there is a 1696 poll tax record for the County in the University of Aberdeen’s collections, but facsimiles of an early 19th century transcription have been published by the Aberdeen & N.E. Scotland Family History Society for each parish, and we have copies in our searchroom (these are titled “The People of [Parish Name] 1696”, so you’d be looking at “The People of Cruden 1696”).
Depending on the standing of the individuals, you could also look at wills and testaments, or deeds and sasines : the National Records of Scotland provide good research guides for these and other sources (
http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/a-z).
Finally, the Old Statistical Account, written by the local minister in the 1790s, would give you an idea of what the parish was like at this time. They are available online here:
http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public.