Scottish Certificates of Births, Marriages and Deaths can be obtained:
- from the local registration office where the event (Birth, Marriage or Death) was registered. You have to know where in advance. A list of local registration districts can be downloaded by clicking the following link:
General Register Office For Scotland
New Register House
Edinburgh EH1 3YT
Scotland
Tel: 0131-334-0380 Fax: 0131-314-4400
E-mail: records@gro-scotland.gov.uk
You can write to this office with as accurate information as you know regarding the date and place of the event. However, it is better to go there as part of your genealogical researches and spend a day for a fee. You can view microfiches of certificates, and copy down the details rather than buy the certificates, though you could do that too if expense is not a problem!
- Perhaps the most popular method nowadays, however, is to go to the Scotland's People web-site where you can get on-line access to indexes and images of a great deal of the genealogical sources at New Register House.
The site has a full instructions about how to use it. Basically it involves getting a user name and password, and buying credits on-line using a credit card. The credits are deducted as you access levels of information. Getting certificates on-line involves downloading images of them. These can be saved to your hard-disc and printed out. Your credits are time-limited, but if they are not all used within the time limit, the remaining ones will be added to any new credit batch purchase you make.
Note that on-line you will only have access to birth certificates more than 100 years old, marriage certificates more than 75 years old and death certificates more than 50 years old.
