Towns & Parishes
all of Wigtownshire
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Wigtownshire
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"WIGTOWNSHIRE, a maritime county in the SW extremity of Scotland, forms the W division of Galloway, and contains the most southernly land in Scotland. It is bounded on the N partly by the mouth of the Firth of Clyde, but chiefly by Ayrshire, E by Kirkcudbrightshire, S by the Irish Sea, and W by the Irish Channel....
...The interior is divided into three great districts. The peninsula, or rather the double peninsula, W of Loch Ryan and Luce Bay, is known as the Rhinns of Galloway; the district which forms the broad-based triangular peninsula between Luce Bay and Wigtown Bay is called the Machers; while the rest of the county, N of the Machers and E of Loch Ryan, bears the loose general name of the Moors...
...The streams of Wigtownshire are very numerous, but for the most part of short course and unimportant size. The chief is the Cree, which for 21 1/2 miles forms the boundaries between Kirkcudbright and Wigtown shires, just before it enters Wigtown Bay at Creetown....
...Wigtownshire is almost exclusively an agricultural and grazing county, its manufacture and commerce, and mining being but of little importance...
...The royal burghs in the county are Wigtown, Stranraer, and Whithorn; the burghs of barony are Newton Stewart, Glenluce, and Portpatrick..."
Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, edited by Francis H. Groome, 1885
| Glasserton
Inch Kirkcolm Kirkcowan Kirkinner Kirkmaiden |
Leswalt
Mochrum New Luce Old Luce Penninghame Portpatrick |
Sorbie
Stoneykirk Stranraer Whithorn Wigtown |
See also our information on General Register Office for Scotland
and entries below for Census Returns, Church Records and Civil Registration
Stranraer Museum, 55 George Street, Stranraer DG9 7JP (Archives)
Local Libraries in Dumfries and Galloway possess local history and genealogical collections of value to family history researchers.
Dumfries and Galloway Family History Research Centre, 9 Glasgow Street, Dumfries, DG2 9AF
Source material for the county and individual parishes can be found in the publications lists of Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society.
Scottish census returns are held at the General Register Office and copies on microfilm may be consulted in
LDS Family History Centres around the world.
Various census indexes are available that will help you in your research. They are the following:
Church Records are located at the General Register Office and the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh. The General Register Office has put the OPR online. The OPR is pre 1855 Church of Scotland church records. The people in the county belonged predominately to the Church of Scotland. For a fee you can search these records at their web site, scotlandspeople.gov.uk. You can also search the LDS database (IGI) which contains much of the OPR. Copies of the parish registers on microfilm and the OPR index may be consulted in LDS Family History Centres around the world. The LDS library catalogue can be searched online to determine what parish registers are available.
The condition of parish registers was recorded in the New Statistical Account. In 1849 William Turnbull published a book which extracted from the New Statistical Account remarks by the ministers about their individual registers. For the most part the ministers describe their registers as imperfect, defective, and not voluminous.
The National Archives of Scotland holds nonconformist or church records for those churches other than the Church of Scotland. Local archives also hold some nonconformist records. The people in the county belonged predominately to the Church of Scotland. Many of those people that did not belong to the Church of Scotland had to travel some distance to attend church, so you should search surrounding parishes for nonconformist records.
The Kirk Session of a parish consists of the minister and elders from the congregation and a clerk . It looked after the general well being of the congregation and parochial discipline. You will find in these records mention of illegitmate children, irregular marriages, and poor people that received money from the Kirk. The detailed accounts will mention many people in the parish. Kirk Session records are held in the National Archives of Scotland.
The registration of births, deaths and marriages began on
January 1, 1855. Civil Registration records are held at the General Register Office in Edinburgh. For a small fee you can
download and print images of the vital records at their web site. The
records are indexed and easily searchable.
The LDS database (IGI) contains birth and marriage data from 1855 to 1875.
Records of testaments, inventories etc. are held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh. (previously known as the Scottish Record Office)
The latest information on sites to see, recreation, and accommodations can be found on a site established by the
Dumfries and Galloway Tourist Board.
Dumfries and Galloway online provides similar
information.
A good guide to the Galloway area is C.H.Dick's "Highways & Byways in Galloway & Carrick". This was first published in 1916, but a limited edition reprint was recently issued by G.C.Book Publishers.
A book which may be of interest is John Hume and Judith Anderson's "Dumfries & Galloway: an illustrated architectural guide". As the title suggests, it concentrates on the architecture of the area. However it is well illustrated with hundreds of photographs and contains short descriptions and historical notes on many places.
Throughout the years commercial directories have been made of the county. The 1837 Pigot's directory is available from a local publisher, G.C.Book Publishers. The 1837 Pigot's directory lists the various towns in the county with a brief description, and the names of those that were involved in business activities, i.e., nobility, gentry, bankers, bakers, booksellers, etc..
A mailing list has been established for those researching surnames originating in, existing in, or having emigrated from the Dumfries/Galloway area of Scotland. This includes the counties of Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries.
A mailing list has been established for those who have research interests in Wigtownshire.
Let others know about the ancestors you are looking for in Wigtownshire. A surname list for the county has been established on Rootsweb. The Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society surname list is no longer online. Submit your names to the new list.
The Scotland Surnames List maintained by Graham Jaunay includes this county.
Useful information about the county can be found on the Wigtownshire Scotland GenWeb Page.
The Wigtownshire Pages on Rootsweb is an excellent site. It provides records to help trace your ancestry.
The Scottish Page is devoted to the research of Scottish ancestry, especially that of Dumfries and Galloway.
The Highland and Agriculture Society of Scotland published an article by Thomas Maclelland of Kirkinner, Wigtownshire in 1875 on the
state of agriculture in Galloway. Section 5, A sketch of the early
state of agriculture in Kirkcudbright and Wigtown, depicts the times from the seventeenth to nineteenth century.
These paragraphs record the effect the Napoleonic conflict had on the region. "The first impetus the agriculture of the two
counties received was consequent on the high prices of grain during the French war. Gold or silver had always hitherto been
a scarce commodity in Galloway. No transaction of buying or selling was ever settled in cash. Bills or promissory notes
were given and taken for the smallest, as well as for the largest amount. Tradesmen's accounts, and even servants' wages,
were paid in the same manner. When the excitement of the French war brought prices double of what had ever been heard of,
and gold found its way into the district, the farming interest began to flourish. New steadings with thrashing mills were
erected, strong and substantial fences were put up, and improvements on all sides became visible. The rent of land received
an extraordinary advance, and at the set of the Baldoon estate in 1806, just before purchased by the Earl of Galloway, such
was the excitement, and the eagerness to possess land, that the auctioneer had to restrain his bidders with the caution,
"Remember, gentlemen, you are not purchasing the land, you are only leasing it." But, alas! the high built hopes that these
prices would always remain were suddenly dashed to the ground; for on the cessation of the war in 1815, the low prices
which followed drained the farmers' pockets, of most, if not of all their capital, leaving them completely in the power of
their landlords, who in some instances, at least, did not push their advantage to the utmost. A period of great depression
in agriculture ensued, and for twenty years neither landlords nor tenants were possessed of ability or spirit to prosecute
much improvement."
The Union of the crowns in 1603 marked the end of the the reiving times. The reiving times was the conflict that raged between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries on the border between Scotland and England. A book, The Steel Bonnets, provides a history of the reiving times.
A History of Dumfries and Galloway
by Herbert Maxwell provides a history of the region as it relates to Scottish history from A.D. 79 to about 1750. Read some
brief excerpts. "...It has been stated above the activity of the Legislature in proceeding against witches was not manifested in Dumfrieshire and Galloway until
a latter period than in the rest of Scotland. From 1656 onwards, however, this devilish business was pressed with diligence
by some of the church courts....
....The record is not so black in Wigtownshire. There is indeed, no evidence of any witches having been put to death in
that county...."
The Covenanters in Arms -- "...The smouldering fires, kindled by the creation of Episcopacy and the imposition of a
liturgy, now broke forth. The General Assembly, in defiance of a writ of disolution issued by Hamilton, continued to sit at
Glasgow, and on November 21, 1638...
...Preparations for war were begun as soon as the Assembly adjourned. Although the great territorial influences of the
Maxwells was on the side of the king and bishops, the mass of the people in the south-west and many of the baronage had
signed the Covenant, and were ready to fight for it."
One of the greatest transportation changes of the nineteenth century, the railroad, came to the county in about 1860. There had been a railroad between Glasgow and Dumfries since 1850. The first line that that was opened was the section between Dumfries and CastleDouglas in 1859. Soon after the railroad was extended from CastleDouglas to Portpatrick in Wigtownshire.
The site, Museums and Galleries, provides a look at
various aspects of Dumfries & Galloway over the centuries. The link, Local economy within the the section
History of Dumfries records the following. "Dumfries was, and indeed still is, the most important market town for
South-West Scotland and as such has always serviced the surrounding countryside. Cattle have long been an important
industry and ancillary industries used to be significant in Dumfries; tanning, leatherworking, shoe making, clogmaking and
saddlery to mention a few. The agricultural improvements of the 18th century brought about increased yields from cultivated
land and considerable areas were given over to the cultivation of oats, barley and wheat. The ancillary industries for
these are brewing, distilling and milling."
"Galloway cattle together with beasts imported from Ireland were driven south to English markets in vast herds, often as
many as 30,000 a year. Towns such as Stranraer, New Galloway, Kirkcudbright and Dumfries served as collecting points on the
droving routes, which ran the length of Galloway from Portpatrick to Carlisle. One of the favourite crossing points which
saved a detour of miles was from Dornock across the Solway and there is a pub on the English side at Monkhill near Burgh by
Sands called the Drovers Rest. One of the places on the distance marker affixed to the Midsteeple is Huntingdon, in the
last century one of the most important of the English cattle markets. Droving was killed off by development of steam
shipping but meat export continued to be important."
Take a look at photographs of churches and churchyards in Dumfries and Galloway many of which are from Wigtownshire.
A primary source of land ownership can be found in Sasine registers. Many farmers leased land so they would not be in
the sasine registers.
The sasine records are indexed from 1780 to 1868 and beyond. There are no indexes to Sasine Registers for Wigtownshire
prior to 1780. The sasine registers to be aware of are the Particular Register for Wigtownshire and Burgh register of
Sasine for the towns of Wigtown, Stranraer, and Whithorn. There is also a general register of sasine which was kept
in Edinburgh. Sasine records are held at the National Archives of
Scotland in Edinburgh and may be purchased from them. Search the indexes first to determine if these records exist for
your ancestor.
History of the Land and their Owners in Galloway, by P.H. M'Kerlie, provides information about land and its owners in every parish from the dark ages into the nineteenth century. Many place names that are no longer on maps can be found in this work. (see Bibliography #4) A surname and place name index of this work is now online
Historic maps for the county of Wigtownshire dated from 1846 to 1899. (scale 1:10,560)
See "The Place Names of Galloway" by Sir Herbert Maxwell, published in 1930.
Castles of Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, and Dumfries.
| Year | Persons |
| 1755 | 16,466 |
| 1801 | 22,918 |
| 1821 | 33,240 |
| 1841 | 39,195 |
| 1851 | 43,389 |
The statistical accounts are the result of a series of questions that were directed to the ministers of each parish.
There are accounts for every parish in Wigtownshire. These reports provide a description of the social and economic life in
the parishes and much more.
The Old Statistical Account was compiled in the 1790's. The New Statistical Account was compiled in the 1840's. The Statistical Accounts are online. Segments of the
New Statisical Account have been used in the Parish section. The New Statistical Account has been microfilmed and may
be consulted in Mormon Family History Centres around the world.
There is also a Third Statistical Account which was prepared in the 1940's
Find help, report problems, and contribute information.