Scottish cemeteries are a useful genealogical source for investigating the details of an ancestor in decades or centuries gone by. On one level, visiting a cemetery where a family member was buried, or viewing images of their headstone or grave-plaque, can personalize their burial place or add details about them which might not otherwise be revealed on a death cert. The type of headstone a family places on a grave and the words written on it, for instance, give insights into a person’s family life that are simply not provided through more traditional demographic records. Cemeteries are particularly useful in the Scottish context, as civil registration did not begin in Scotland until 1855, while there were problems with enforcing people to conform to the strictures of civil registration for decades thereafter. Thus, a cemetery can often provide details of the death of an ancestor in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries which cannot be ascertained through other documentary evidence.[1]
History of Scottish cemeteriesHistory of Scottish cemeteries
Skara Brae
Some of the most important Scottish burial sites from ancient sites are found on the Orkney Islands where the famous Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae was inhabited in the late fourth millennium BCE and for much of the third millennium BCE. Burial cists in the region from thousands of years ago are still being found today by archaeologists.[2] Similarly, in 2019 details were released of an archaeological study which has uncovered a large 1,400-year old Pictish burial site in the Highlands.[3]
There are numerous major cemeteries that have survived in Scotland from as early as the sixteenth century, notably the Howff cemetery in Dundee, established during the middle of the sixteenth century. However, as with England and Wales, most of Scotland’s largest cemeteries today were established as a result of the Burial Acts that were promulgated by the parliament of the United Kingdom in the 1850s to respond to booming populations, growing cities and towns and the epidemic of cholera that ravaged Europe between the 1830s and the 1890s. An act specific to Scotland was issued in 1855. In the years that followed, some of the country’s largest cemeteries such as the Western Cemetery in Dundee were opened, though the number which opened in Scotland in the 1850s and 1860s was lower than in England and Wales, as numerous large cemeteries had already been opened in Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s.[4]
Scottish cemeteries and genealogical researchScottish cemeteries and genealogical research
Millions of cemetery records have been digitized and recorded from across Scotland during the last thirty years. These include records from over 2,700 graveyards across the country and come from civilian and military cemeteries.[5] Cemetery records for over a century and a half between 1840 and 2014 in Aberdeen, Angus and Edinburgh are available through the Select Burial and Cremation Index on MyHeritage. There are over 80,000 burial records from Stirlingshire and Perthshire and a further 615,000 gravestones and memorials across Scotland as far back as the eighteenth century accessible through MyHeritage. The BillionGraves resource, an ever-growing repository of images of more than 40 million headstones worldwide, some from Scotland, can also be accessed through MyHeritage.
Important Scottish cemeteriesImportant Scottish cemeteries
As with any large or mid-sized country, there are hundreds of cemeteries in Scotland. Here are some of the largest and most historically significant:
Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh – One of the most historically and culturally important cemeteries in Europe, Greyfriars was first used a cemetery as early as the sixteenth century. Over 100,000 burials have occurred here and the cemetery inspired J. K. Rowling when writing her Harry Potter novels. Kirk is a Scottish word for ‘church’, so Kirkyard is simply another way of saying ‘churchyard’, while the Greyfriars were a major branch of the Franciscans in late medieval times.[6]
Greenock cemetery, Glasgow – Though Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, Glasgow surpassed it as the most populous city as a result of booming industrial growth in the nineteenth century. To deal with the growing population, Greenock cemetery was opened in 1846 as a successor to the Old West Kirk cemetery in the city.[7]
Glasgow Necropolis – Inspired by the development of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, Glasgow Necropolis was opened in 1832 and has more monumental tombs than most cemeteries in Britain.[8]
Old Town cemetery, Stirling – An historic cemetery, the origins of which can be traced back to the sixteenth century.[9]
Old Town cemetery, StirlingThe Howff, Dundee – In 1564, Mary, Queen of Scots, granted a plot of crown land to the city to become the main cemetery there. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were buried here down to the nineteenth century. It is one of the most historically significant burial sites in Europe.[10]
Western cemetery, Dundee – Another cemetery which emerged following the Burial Acts of the 1850s, it became one of the most important in Scotland within decades.[11]
Tomnahurich cemetery, Inverness – One of the foremost cemeteries in the Scottish Highlands, Tomnahurich was opened in 1864. The Scots-Gaelic name Tomnahurich means ‘hill of the yew wood’.[12]
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