One of the best ways to help grow your family tree is to look at headstones in churchyards where your ancestors were interred. Graveyards are undoubtedly a rich resource for finding out what happened to your family. Church records and census browsing can give you facts but you might find an extra facet or personal statement on a gravestone which simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.

They are also particularly useful for filling in the ten-year gaps between census and for the time before the registration of births, deaths and marriages. Also, stones do make clear the cumulative result of many individual deaths. They often also help make clear family events. Even looking at other grave markers in the area will help build an understanding of what may have been impacting the local people. The look of a gravestone may give you a fair idea of how well off the family were (of course many people could not pay for gravestones).

Locating your ancestors grave

The first likely thing to do is to try and find where you think the graves might be. The usual way for this is first of all to establish where the family stayed. Find the census records for the particular person, and then find out what district or parish they were in. Ancestry or Find My Past have census records and in Scotland you can look at the Scotland’s People website.

Once you’ve found the parish you’ll most likely have to switch websites to locate one that has the relevant parish records. A very good list of parish websites is Scotsfamily. Each of these vary as to just how much has been digitised but utilising this list may help you find a person who is relevant.

Having located a likely location for burial then it can be time to start the footwork however I’ve also found that local history organisations may be of help. I recall once searching for why a great, great, great grandparent had vanished from census documents and her partner had possibly remarried. I located a possible parish for the burial, placed a note on nearby history societies bulletin board and then one helpful individual went and found the grave and emailed me a picture of the headstone. It was superb. Now you may not be so lucky but it could be worth a shot

What you’ll need

1) Diligence and persistence

2) A note book or may be an iPad.

3) A camera

4) A soft brush

5) A torch

6) Boots and cosy gloves

Some of this stuff is pretty obvious but the brush is useful for (carefully) removing moss if you need to and the torch may be useful if a gravestone is hard to read. Shining the torch from the side may help you see the carvings more clearly.

When you’re in a churchyard be careful of the heavy headstones. They can topple easily and can be dangerous. The warm gloves and solid footwear will probably prove essential especially if you’re trudging through a Scottish winter.

All the best in your search to grow your family tree in Scotland.

To help expand your family tree in Scotland be sure to check out familytreescotland.co.uk for more tutorials, tips and tricks.