I have names I can search under. My query relates to the existence of records alternative to birth marriage death census etc. I'm basically wondering what other records I can check and how to access them?
The answer is yes, there are other records. However it's not going to be an easy task.
In your other thread someone provided you with a likely-looking birth in England
GRO births
GALLAGHER, John mms. DEVLIN
1886 MarQ South Shields Vol 10A page 730
You can order a copy of this birth certificate from
https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/ Your apparent determination in this thread not to name names, even when specifically asked, or to list dates and places, does not make it easy to help. There is no point in withholding whatever information you do have.
If he was an orphan or a foundling, and you are very lucky, there could be information in the Parochial Board records. Not all of these have survived, but if they have they contain a vast amount of detail. Many of the ones from Glasgow have survived and can be consulted in the City Archives in the Mitchell Library. Few of the Edinburgh ones have survived, but the Edinburgh City archives will be able to tell you what is available.
There are registers of electors. They are arranged by electoral ward, then by parish, then by address and I am not aware of anywhere they are online. You can usually find them in the form of tomes in main libraries, but you need to know which library to go to. Alternatively you can get pretty much all of them in the National Library of Scotland and I think in the National Records of Scotland, both in Edinburgh. Bear in mind that until 1918 not all men had the right to vote.
There are surviving school admission registers. You need to know where the school was, and which former local authority managed it. Then which archive holds the surviving records of that local authority. Unless it was one of the many private schools, in which case you need to find out where the school's archives are. Note that by no means all school records have survived.
The extant Church of Scotland parish registers were collected by the Registrar General in 1855, but churches went on keeping records of baptisms. A few of these have found their way into archives, as have the post-1855 records of the Roman Catholic Church and some other denominations. Most, however, remain with the churches, so you would need to know which church he was baptised in and then find out whether the baptismal register has survived and if so where it is.
Adoption records are not an option. First, formal adoption only began in about 1930, which is too late for your man, and second, adoption records are only available to the adopted person or a formally authorised agent acting for the adopted person.
Don't believe any suggestion that you can reliably distinguish Scottish ancestry from Irish ancestry by DNA.
And please don't start new threads about the same person/people without including a link to all previous threads. It would be very annoying to find that we have been wasting our time looking up information that other people have already found for you.
