SCOTS ORIGINS - THE GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE FOR SCOTLAND ONLINE

Scots Origins is the official, Governmental source of genealogical data for Scotland It is an online "pay-per-view" database of indexes from the genealogical records of the General Register Office for Scotland - the GRO (S) and is to be found at www.origins.net/gro. It costs £6 (sterling) for 30 "page credits". Each page consists of a maximum of 15 search results. The initial 30 page credits are valid for 24 hours from the time of payment (i.e. the clock starts when you pay). Further credits can be bought in 30 page increments for a further £6 charge each time. Each further purchase restarts your 24-hour user period from the time of payment.

If you are unsure about using it for the first time there is a very clear demonstration available that shows you what the payment, search and results pages look like. It also reminds you to write down your password and user number. Very important if you want to go into the system more than once.

About the index

The Scots Origins database contains fully searchable indexes of the Old Parish Registers of births/baptisms and banns/marriages dating from 1553 to 1854, indexes to the Statutory Registers of births, deaths and marriages from 1855 to 1898, and the index to census records for 1891. One additional year of births/deaths/marriage index data is added per annum (1899, 1900 etc.). The restriction to data over 100 years old is GRO(S) policy to protect the privacy of living persons. The index to 1881 census data will be provided later this year (1999).

Searching is possible on the following fields:

Surname

Event type (birth/christening, marriage, death, census)

Sex

Forename (or first initial)

Year of registration (or range of years)

Age (or age range) - deaths and 1891 census only

Parish or Registration District

County (Old Parish Registers only)

Searching is also possible on other names which are mentioned within a particular record. This includes spouse's name, father's name, mother's name and mother's maiden surname, depending on the entry.

Extract Ordering

An extract is a transcription of all the information in an entry in the original registers held by GRO(S). Entries themselves often contain additional information that is not held within the indexes and can be of historical interest. Extracts of the original entries in the GRO(S) records can be ordered directly from the database. Extract orders are processed by GRO(S) and sent via ordinary mail as paper documents. The cost of each extract is £10. Extracts of entries not accessible via the online database (that is those that are less than one hundred years old) can be ordered directly from the GRO(S) website by printing off a form and either faxing or mailing it.

For further details about the GRO(S), visit their website http://www.open.gov.uk/gros/groshome.htm