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The Old Parish Registers (OPR) are the main record of births, marriages and deaths in
Scotland from the sixteenth century to 1854. Most of these parish registers have been
deposited in the General Register Office in Edinburgh. While the registers are by no means
complete. they are by far the best source for genealogy prior to 1855. The OPR have been
the subject of two ambitious indexing projects by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints (Mormon church):
1. Index to the Old Parish Registers (OPK), March 1991 version
This finishes at the end of 1854, civil Registration having become compulsory from l January
1855, and now completely covers all the old parish registers. It only records births,
christenings and marriages. Entries are presented in surname order within each county, giving
the date of the event, the parents' names of children, and spouse's name for marriages. Each
entry has a source number that identifies the origin of the record.
2. International Genealogical Index (IGI), March 1992 version
This is independent of source 1 and, while duplicating much of the information in 1, contains
additional entries both before and after the end of 1854.
From 1855 registration was a civil matter and became truly comprehensive. For ancestors who
were born, married or died after 1854, the registration records are at the General Register
Office in Edinburgh. These records have been the subject of a successful transfer to
computers. greatly simplifying the search for post-1854 ancestors. Information in these
records (e.g. parents. ages. places) can indicate for whom, when and where to start looking
for pre-1855 ancestors in the Old Parish Records.
If a record of the birth of the father can be found, this will usually give the names of both
parents, and the search moves back a generation. Even if the father's birth record is not
found, knowing the names of the rest of the family can give a guide to the names of the
grandparents, for it was common practice for the eldest son to be named after the paternal
grandfslther, and sometimes the second daughter after the paternal grandmother. Then a search
can be made for an appropriate family at a suitable date.
OPR searches can be very time-consuming, as I found out when tackling my own Nisbet
family tree. The object of these booklets, of which this is the second, is to ease such a task
for other Nisbet researchers. Volume 1 covered the Lothians and Lanarkshire. This volume
covers the counties South of the Forth-Clyde valley. and the rest of Scotland is covered in a
third volume.
It must be stressed that neither the OPR nor the published indexes are fully comprehensive
or accurate. and that before drawing up a definitive genealogical chart, original sources should be consulted. The microfiche indexes to the OPR and the IGI both give locations of source material. These microfiches can be consulted free of charge at the National Library of
Scotland in Edinburgh. and at local Family History Libraries run by Mormon churches all over the world. These libraries can also obtain much of the source material on microfilm.
A number of genealogical societies and record offices also hold copies of the OPR and IGI
indexes. Any up-to-date handbook on researching Scottish ancestry will give good guidance
on how to navigate one's way around these information sources.
A number of families listed in this Volume moved from or to counties covered in Volume
1. This has been noted both in the text and the index of this volume. The cross references
to Vol 1 indicate the date of the entry in that volume, not the same as that for Vol 2. Much
useful information on Nesbittmisbet families will be found in Robert C. Nesbitt's Nisbet of
that Ilk (London: John Murray, 1941). A number of references to this book were inserted
against names in the Index of Vol 1. There are a few more in this Volume.
Notes on compilation
Families are listed chronologically by parents' marriage date. If this is not recorded, the
family is entered at the beginning of the year of birth (or baptism) of the eldest recorded
child. 'm.'(married), 'b.'(born), or 'c.'(christened, baptised) is followed by 'date' and 'place'.
the place being normally 'parish' followed by 'county'. The county is omitted for parishes
which have the county name. The place is omitted for children if it is the same as for the
parents' marriage. In the two sources the spelling of parents' names is often not consistent,
even within a single family: so, mostly, only the one used for the majority of the family has
been retained. Childrens' surnames (Nesbitt/Nisbet/etc.) are only listed if different from the
spelling used for the father.
In the sources, marriages are often recorded twice with different places andor dates.
presumably independently by the two parties to the marriage. One has been discarded here
if the other fits better with the childrens' birth records. A number of entries in the sources
are incomplete, the original probably being partly illegible. These have been ignored, except
where a place andlor date suggests their allocation to a family. Attention is drawn to such
"informed guesses" by question marks. Births after 1st January 1855 have only been extracted
(from Source 2) for some of the families set up before that date, and not followed up
completely even for those.
Every effort has been made to avoid errors of omission or transcription; the Nesbitt/Nisbet
Society would be grateful to receive note of any corrections found by users of this volume.
Acknowledgements: The Nesbitmisbet Society is grateful for permission from the Controller
of Her Majesty's Stationary Office to include material from the microfiche indexes to the
OPR.
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