Poor Relief Records Index

This index does not cover all of Scotland. To see what is included please look at our coverage page. Poor relief records are held by a variety of archives around Scotland. To learn how these records can help you trace your Scottish family tree and how to access them visit our Learning Zone.


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Parish Help

Enter the forename(s) in the first box, and the surname in the second box.

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

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

Remember that ages were not always recorded accurately in historical records. Try widening the birth year range if you do not find the person you are looking for.

Enter a parish name in the first box; a county name in the second box; and a country name in the third box.

Sometimes the birthplace is given as only a country, or is not known, so if you don’t find the result you are looking for try leaving some (or all) of these boxes 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.

The residence in the poor relief register index has not been separated into parishes, counties or countries. The original registers usually give a town, village or parish of residence for local people, but give residences with increasing levels of vagueness for those who were only temporary visitors to the area.

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 search help page.

Enter a parish name in the first box, or a county name in the second box.

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 search help page.