Scottish Paternity Index

This is an index to Scottish paternity cases. Most entries relate to children born to unmarried parents where the mother of the child took the father to court to prove he was the father and force him to pay maintenance. So far the database includes over 42,000 entries taken from Sheriff Court records and Kirk Session records. To see which records are included please see our coverage page. You can learn more about the records we have indexed in our Learning Zone.


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Mother/Pursuer:
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Father/Defender:
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Occupation Help
Residence Help
Birth Year Help +/-
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Learn About the Scottish Paternity Index

Learn About the Scottish Paternity Index

 		Scottish Indexes Learning Zone

Scottish Genealogy Learning Zone

 		Scottish Indexes Record Sets

Record Sets

 		Scottish Indexes Search Help

Search Help
Learn About the Scottish Paternity Index

Learn About the Scottish Paternity Index

 		Scottish Indexes Learning Zone

Learning Zone

> 		Scottish Indexes Record Sets

Record Sets

 		Scottish Indexes Search Help

Search Help

Enter the forename(s) in the first box, and the surname in the second box. The pursuer in the case was usually (but not always) the mother of the child.

Remember that spellings in historical records can vary widely, so use wildcards to help you find your ancestors. More

Less is often more! If you don’t find the result you are looking for try leaving this box blank or see our help section.

In a few cases the year of birth of the child is not recorded. Try leaving the year of birth blank.

This can be a useful tool to speed up the display of search results. If you find your advanced search is taking a long time to return results you can use this box to narrow your search to a few years at a time. By narrowing the year range you can also reduce the number of results when searching on common surnames.

Enter the forename(s) in the first box, and the surname in the second box. The defender in the case was usually (but not always) the father of the child.

Remember that spellings in historical records can vary widely, so use wildcards to help you find your ancestors. More

The residence in the Scottish Paternity Index has not been separated into parishes, counties or countries. The original records vary widely in the way this is recorded, but often fairly specific information such as farm and street names are given. County names are often not recorded.

Remember that less is often more! If you don’t find the result that you are looking for try leaving this boxes blank. See our help section.

Enter a county name.

Remember that less is often more! If you don’t find the result that you are looking for try leaving one (or both) of these boxes blank. See our help section.