Episcopal church records

[cthor18]

Does anyone know how you can get Episcopal church records for Aberdeenshire is there any on line or do yo have to go to Aberdeen 🤔

[CaroleW]

What kind of records ?? BMD  & what timescale?

www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

[Forfarian]

The records of the Episcopal Church of Scotland are not available* online, and specifically they are not on Scotland's People.

*Well, there could be an occasional one that someone has transcribed, but mostly they are not.

I believe that some of the Aberdeenshire ones are in the Aberdeen University Library, some may (or may not) be in the Diocesan archives, and others remain in the individual churches.

So not only do you need to go to Aberdeen(shire), you also need to check carefully before you set off so that you know which repository has the one(s) you want to see.

[cthor18]

Looking for George Henderson and Francis Taylor also there son James born about 1822 might be St Paul’s Episcopal Aberdeen

[Fogmoose]

The records of the Episcopal Church of Scotland are not available* online, and specifically they are not on Scotland's People.

*Well, there could be an occasional one that someone has transcribed, but mostly they are not.

I believe that some of the Aberdeenshire ones are in the Aberdeen University Library, some may (or may not) be in the Diocesan archives, and others remain in the individual churches.

So not only do you need to go to Aberdeen(shire), you also need to check carefully before you set off so that you know which repository has the one(s) you want to see.

Doesn't the LDS have them on microfilm as well?

[Forfarian]

Doesn't the LDS have them on microfilm as well?

I don't think they do.

The list of collections at Family Search mentions:

(1) Index to selected Scotland births and baptisms. Only a few localities are included and the time period varies by locality. Due to privacy laws, recent records may not be displayed. The year range represents most of the records. A few records may be earlier or later. (This is a partial index to the Church of Scotland parish registers which are fully indexed on SP, and a small proportion of early statutory civil birth and marriage records)

(2) Records of Church of Scotland synods, presbyteries and kirk sessions containing registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials originally filmed at the National Archives of Scotland, CH2 series. (This is what is now available on SP as Kirk Session records.)

(3) Records of Free, United Presbyterian, United Free and Other Protestant Churches in Scotland from 1736-1990 originally filmed at the National Archives of Scotland, CH3 series. (Most of these are on SP as 'other churches'. They do not include the Episcopal Church.)

[Fogmoose]

I was certain I had perused the microfilm with Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths and burials from St. Pauls in Aberdeen covering the years 1720 to 1865, and indeed I had back in 2016! They can be obtained on loan from LDS at most local librarys.... at least here in the US. In fact I may have saved some of the actual images from said years...I'll take a look. OK I did save a bunch of jpg's from St. Pauls but nothing from 1822 or thereabouts. Had a quick look in nearby years and no Hendersons or Taylors jumped out at me. But the records from those years are nice and clear so you should'nt have much trouble once you get a hold of the microfilm.

[Forfarian]

I was certain I had perused the microfilm with Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths and burials from St. Pauls in Aberdeen covering the years 1720 to 1865, and indeed I had back in 2016! They can be obtained on loan from LDS at most local librarys.... at least here in the US. In fact I may have saved some of the actual images from said years...I'll take a look. OK I did save a bunch of jpg's from St. Pauls but nothing from 1822 or thereabouts. Had a quick look in nearby years and no Hendersons or Taylors jumped out at me. But the records from those years are nice and clear so you should'nt have much trouble once you get a hold of the microfilm.

As I said, there might be one or two, so if it's St Paul's that cthor18 is interested in, so much the better. 

'On microfilm' is not the same as 'online', of course. A church might have allowed the LDS to film its registers for safe keeping of the information but not authorised them to transcribe or index it or make it available online. (The reason why not all the National Records of Scotland's CH3 material is on Scotland's People is that some congregations have not, or not yet, given permission for their records to be on SP.)

The National Records of Scotland's Episcopal Church material is under CH12 not CH2, but it doesn't seem to include much in the way of baptisms/marriages/deaths. See http://catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk/nrsonlinecatalogue/details.aspx?reference=CH12&st=1&tc=y&tl=n&tn=n&tp=n&k=episcopal+church&ko=p&r=ch&ro=s&df=&dt=&di=y

The catalogue at FamilySearch is singularly unhelpful. I pulled up the CH3 collection just in case the LDS had put any Episcopal records in that, and searched for surname Gordon, date before 1855 and place Aberdeenshire. However when I clicked on some of the 447 results, they don't tell you the church or denomination involved! Noting that some were in Edinburgh or Glasgow, I narrowed the search to just Aberdeenshire and there were no results at all.

The same search on SP produces just 293 results for the whole of Scotland, so there are obviously some listings on FS that are not on SP. However there are 10 in Aberdeenshire, so there are also some on SP that are not on FS.

So take Fogmoose's advice and go to your nearest LDS Church Family History Centre and ask them to get you that microfilm.

And take my advice to check with the individual churches, or the diocesan archives, or local or university archives, before you do travel to Aberdeen or anywhere else.

[cthor18]

Thank you