There is a wealth of material available on the internet for Scottish-based family history research. The key platform for beginners is undoubtedly the National Records of Scotland’s pay-per-view ScotlandsPeople website, which offers access to indexes and images for the records of births, marriages and deaths, as compiled by the state, as well as censuses, land records and wills. Subscription sites have some additional holdings, but supplementing these are many equally valuable resources available online for free, covering a range of subjects and records. In this article I will take a look at ten of the best.

National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland is one of the key providers of free genealogical information in Scotland. As well as offering a free family history research guide from its home page, the organisation also offers a significant amount of digitised data for free. This includes some 700 Post Office directories from 1770-1911, more than 91,000 maps of the country from 1560-1961, a digital gallery with collections including military rolls of honour, the Scottish Screen Archive, gazetteers and more. In addition, if you are resident in Scotland, you can also subscribe for free to its Licensed Digital Collections, which offers access to the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database, the British Library 19th Century Newspaper Collection (including titles for Glasgow, Edinburgh Dundee and Aberdeen), and archives for the Times of London and the Scotsman .

Statistical Accounts of Scotland
In the 1790s and the 1830s/1840s, two nationwide exercises were carried out by Church of Scotland ministers in every parish across the land, to record key elements and information on the very make-up of those parishes. As well as providing useful historical accounts and statistical information for each parish, the Statistical Accounts of Scotland note the use of and improvements of land in each parish, the key occupations and industry, the religious adherence of its parishioners, the names of the key landowners and heritors, interesting and amusing anecdotes, and much more. The accounts have all been digitised and can be freely accessed via the University of Edinburgh’s dedicated platform here. While there is a subscription version of the site, the free browse-only function (see bottom of the home page) is more than enough to cater for genealogical use.

Scottish Archive Network
The Scottish Archive Network platform at scan.org.uk provides several useful resources. Its key contribution is its impressive online catalogue detailing the holdings of some 50 archives across the country, including records held at the National Records of Scotland (which also provides its catalogue independently at nrscotland.gov.uk ).

SCAN also has some digitised collections, such as its collection of Highland and Islands Emigration Society passenger lists, and a Virtual Vault, with many examples of records from a range of topics, including gems such as the Pitsligo School Log Book 1874-1912 and a Minute Book of Perthshire Highway Commissioners 1765-1786. Also available is a useful glossary and knowledge base describing many key topics from weights and measures to the old feudal system of land tenure.

Google Books & Newspapers
The Google platform is best known for its internet search engine, but it also hosts a useful range of resources to help with family history research. Two of its most helpful offerings are Google Books and Google Newspapers. Google Books is located here and hosts thousands of free-to-access Scottish texts, some of which can be downloaded for free, and others provided in a preview or ‘snippet’ mode. Google Newspapers is located here. While this mainly provides free access to US and Canadian newspapers, it also hosts the Glasgow Herald (1806-1990), The Glasgow Advertiser (1783-1801), The Evening Times (1914-1990) and the Bulletin and Scots Pictorial (1951-1960). Access the latter here .

Scottish Handwriting
Over the last few centuries handwriting has evolved considerably, not only within the styles of scripts employed but also the very letters used, with older Scots letters such as the ‘thorn’ and the ‘yogh’ no longer in use. While in most cases documents from the 18th century onwards are fairly intelligible to anyone who has used cursive script, for periods earlier than this the situation deteriorates very quickly, with archaic forms of handwriting such as Secretary Hand becoming a huge barrier to understanding what is before us. Fortunately the National Records of Scotland offers a free online tuition service at here to help break down the barrier. As well as offering a range of free lessons, the site provides weekly teasers to help you gain a better understanding of such handwriting styles and the abbreviations often used in older texts.

Dictionary of the Scots Language
Another problem often encountered with family history documents from Scotland is the use of legal terms and older linguistic terms as derived from the Scots language. This is a branch of the Germanic family of languages that evolved separately from English, and which was the main language of the Scottish state prior to James VI of Scotland moving to London in 1603 to become James I of Britain. It is still in use in Scotland today, albeit in a more Anglicised form. Fortunately a very handy online tool exists in the form of the Dictionary of the Scots Language .

This free-to-access and fully-searchable database combines the resources of A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (12th century – 1700) and the Scottish National Dictionary (1700-2005), with detailed explanations for all Scots words that you are likely to encounter.

FamilySearch
FamilySearch is the online records platform of the American-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As part of its theological remit its members are required to trace their family history, meaning that the site today hosts the world’s largest free collection of genealogical resources. Included among its holdings are two especially valuable datasets, ‘Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950’ and ‘Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910’. Despite their titles, they predominantly contain indexes to baptisms and marriages carried out by the Church of Scotland from 1553-1855, and births and marriages recorded by the state from 1855-1875.

Although the details are basic, providing names, dates and places of events only, they are a useful way to narrow down options before searching for the original records on ScotlandsPeople.

The site also has a very useful wiki function, with background information on a great range of Scottish genealogical resources and places.