Where to look online for Scottish Poor Relief indexes & collections

Ayrshire – Free registration to a regularly-updated index of what’s available (but note that while film ordering from Lds/familysearch centres is no longer an option, requesting digital copies may be possible) http://www.ayrshire-roots.co.uk and search on ‘poor relief’ Borders – Search or browse a record index for 1845-1933 records http://bordersfhs.org.uk/bfhspoorlawsearchform.asp Dundee – Friends of Dundee City Archives’ database includes two volumes covering 1854-1878 http://familytr.ee/friends Lanarkshire – North Lanarkshire Archives’ collections can be accessed with a “free lockdown account” through this link to Ancestry http://www.ancestry.co.uk/s107954/t43608/rd.ashx Moray – A database of many different types of Moray records includes an index to poor relief registers for the county and the former Banffshire area. Start with a people search at http://familytr.ee/moray Paisley – Covering Paisley and its associated Abbey parish from 1839 to 1948 is this downloadable index http://familytr.ee/paisley Stirling – Online indexes for various parishes in the county, plus some images of the kind of records you will find in their archives http://familytr.ee/stirling Findmypast – Many northern Scottish counties as well as East Lothian, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire have records here http://familytr.ee/northern Ancestry – Images of Kirkcaldy’s Abden poorhouse records. Locate this collection in the Ancestry Card Catalogue under ‘Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, Poorhouse Records, 1888-1912’.

Tip! An excellent explanation, with images, of the different types of poor law records you may come across is provided by the Scottish Archive Network’s Virtual Vault. https://www.scan.org.uk/ researchrtools/poorrelief.htm