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Our complete guide to Dumfries and Galloway research
Dumfries and Galloway is in the main a farming area, traditionally known for its skinners, dyers, glovemakers and shoemakers, as well as its ports. Manufacturers established footholds in the region, such as car maker Arrol-Johnston, which was based at Heathhall and worked on one of Donald Campbell’s Bluebird cars. The North British Rubber Company was also at Heathhall, while Rosefield Mills flourished here from the late 1800s. Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) had a munitions factory at Powfoot, near Annan, and a plastics factory at Cargenbridge, near Dumfries, and Nestlé also ran its Carnation Milk factory here, known locally as ‘The Carnation’.
The Crichton Royal Hospital was an asylum that opened in the area in 1839, with room for about 120 beds – just over half of those were allocated for private paying patients, the remainder for pauper patients. It eventually became an internationally recognised centre of excellence in research and care. The Wellcome Trust’s website describes the work of the pioneering Dr WAF Browne, who extolled “moral treatment”, encouraging patients to engage in recreation and occupation: “During his period as Physician Superintendent he oversaw the establishment of a patient’s library in 1839; the first theatrical performance in a mental hospital in 1843; the production of a hospital magazine, the New Moon in 1844, to which patients contributed; and a museum was established in 1846.” You can explore the hospital’s records at bit.ly/well-crichton.
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Dumfries and Galloway Archives is supported by the Friends of the Archives of Dumfries and Galloway, who have produced a host of useful indexes to local sources at https://info.dumgal.gov. uk/HistoricalIndexes. These include fascinating entries from jail books and bail-bond registers; admissions and discharges from Dumfries Industrial School; police tax books and a criminal album; poor-board minutes (1871–1885); and minutes of kirk sessions. There’s also the 1851 census index containing approximately 168,000 records, which includes transcribed data containing name, occupation, relationships, address and home parish.
A change in the law introduced on 1 January 1824 meant that ships had to be registered in their home ports, recording their masters as well as the names of the owners of the 64 shares into which they were divided. These shipping registers are among the customs and excise records held at Dumfries and Galloway Archives, and the Friends have produced indexes for Dumfries (1824–1904), Kirkcudbright (1824–1841), Stranraer (1824–1908) and Wigtown (1836–1920).
A single entry can contain a lot
The indexes include entries from jail books and bail-bond registers
of information. The first relates to the Active, a smack built at Kelton in 1817, registered at Dumfries, “rigged with running bowsprit. One deck, one mast. Square sterned, carvel built. No galleries, no figurehead.” The master was Thomas Bell, and the owners included Dumfries merchant John Pagan, who owned 20 shares.
There are also indexes to Dumfries stent rolls between 1650 and 1794. A stent roll was a list of tax due yearly from each of the businesses, tradesmen or other individuals in the burgh. Usually in Scotland the stent is based on property values, but in Dumfries business success was used instead.
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The county archive is located in Ewart Library, which also looks after trade and school records, material relating to the 1988 Lockerbie air disaster, and a collection of local photographs and newspapers. The library service maintains a useful online newspaper index ( https://info. dumgal.gov.uk/NewspaperIndexes) for local titles covering Annandale, Dumfries, Eskdale, Galloway, Liddesdale, Moffat, Stranraer and Wigtownshire.
There are all kinds of primary and secondary sources for researchers in this part of the world. Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society, for example, has already published the 1801, 1811 and 1821 census for Annan; and there’s a unique 1792 census for Balmaclellan in Kirkcudbrightshire, which was collected by the parish minister. You can also use 1684 parish lists for some of the parishes in Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. These ‘Covenanters’ Lists’ function as a kind of early census.
Genealogists with interests in this area may become attuned to research that crosses borders. The society has published a series of books of Scottish people recorded in marriage or death notices in Carlisle newspapers. And if