Parents with their child, 1930s

Old Parish Registers (c1600-c1855)

Until 1855 many people registered births, marriages and deaths with their local Church of Scotland. The minister would record it in the Parish Register. We have the registers (now known as the Old Parish Registers) for the East Lothian region, including Inveresk (which was in Midlothian until 1974), on microfilm – better still we have the births and marriages indexed to speed up searching. Please be aware that the records for all parishes do not go back to c1600, and there may also be gaps.

Censuses (1841-1901)

In 1841 the government undertook the first official census and in the process created a wealth of information for those doing family research. The latest census held by the Centre is 1901. To help speed up your search 1851 and 1881 are on CD-Rom whilst 1891 is indexed. 1841 has a partial index.

More official records