Over 11 million family history records from West Dunbartonshire, Scotland are now available to search on Ancestry.
The records have been published by Ancestry thanks to a new partnership with West Dunbartonshire Council.
Councillor William Rooney, the council’s convenor of corporate services, said: “This is a fantastic project that has seen the digitisation of 11m records from the service’s unique local and family history resources. This marks a transformative moment in historical research and public access for West Dunbartonshire.”
The records include three sets of index-only parish records from West Dunbartonshire Arts & Heritage Service’s records. The record sets consist of 4,991,735 baptism records (1615-1854), 3,150,429 marriage records (1615-1845) and 497,944 burial records (1655-1854). The records cover modern-day Dunbartonshire, Stirlingshire, Argyll, Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire.
Ancestry has also added index-only sets of 1,821,383 valuation roll records (1855-1930) and 280,033 burial register and monumental inscription records (1855-2024).
It also published the following record sets with the digitised original documents:
- 1914-1918 electoral register records and 1600-1846 burgess roll records, consisting of 61,546 records altogether
- 50,992 school records (1834-1922)
- 3,123 prison register records (1790-1824)
- 6,001 military muster roll records (1890-1917)
- 44,218 nonconformist parish register records (1840-1969)
- The 1901-1915 William Denny & Bros. Shipbuilding Employee Registers, consisting of 957 individual records
- 23,097 city and county directory records (1877-1893)
- 20,661 Poor Law applications and registers records (1846-1914)
The records include records of notable people from West Dunbartonshire. For example, the baptism records include the baptism of William Buchanan, son of Archibald and Mary Buchanan, on 28 March 1830 in Dumbarton. William Buchanan emigrated to the USA with his family as a child and became a respected locomotive designer. He is known for designing high-speed steam locomotives for the New York Central Railroad, including the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad No. 999 locomotive.
In the school records, meanwhile, there is an admission record for Benjamin H. Humble, who joined Dumbarton Academy on 24 August 1914. Ben Humble (1903-1977) became an author and climber, known for his books about climbing on Skye and his support of the founding of Scottish Mountain Rescue.
The William Denny & Bros records, meanwhile, are an important record of a major employer in Dumbarton. The shipbuilding company opened in 1840 and closed in 1963.
The employee registers are beautifully decorated.
Simon Pearce, family history expert at Ancestry, said: Simon Pearce, Family History Expert at Ancestry, said: “Unique features such as the beautiful hand-painted illustrations in the 1901 Denny’s Shipbuilding employee records provide a surprising window into the pride and importance of employee records at the time and will surely delight those seeking out information about ancestors working for this important local shipbuilding company.”
