Arbroath

Arbroath Public Library holds much local history material. The Signal Tower Museum also exists in Arbroath with exhibitions of local interest.

Monumental Inscriptions of the Abbey Churchyard of Abroath have been recorded in Pre-1855 Gravestone Inscriptions in Angus, vol 2 edited by Alison Mitchell, Scottish Genealogy Society, 1979, ISBN 0 901061 22 0. (Follow links to online shop, then memorial inscriptions, then Angus.) Burial records for the Abbey Churchyard Arboath are conatined initially in the Old Parish Records and afterwhich they are held at Angus Recreation Services, Dewar House, Hill Terrace, Abroath. Abroath Eastern and Western Cemeteries are both nineteenth century municipal cemeteries with burial records held at the same office above. Sydney Cramer recorded inscriptions in the Abbey Churchyard in the 1960s, copies held at Dundee Central Library and on microfilm by the LDS Church, microfilm number 0564331 item 1.

All census returns for the parish of  are held at New Register House, Edinburgh and can be consulted there. The census returns have been microfilmed by the LDS church and the films numbers are:

Street indexes

1861, microfilm number 0104116
1871, microfilm number 0104117
1881, microfilm number 0203392

Old Parish Records for the parish of Abroath (272) are located in New Register House, Edinburgh. These have also been microfilmed by the LDS Church. The records contain:

Births and marriages have been indexed and the deaths will eventually be included in the National Burial Index.

Episcopal Church Records for St Mary's, Arbroath are found on the Episcopal Church Records page.

Roman Catholic Records for the Arbroath Congregation can be found on the Roman Catholic Church Records page.

All records of Civil Registration are held at New Register House, Edinburgh. Microfilm copies of births, deaths and marriages for the years 1855-1875, 1881 and 1891 have been filmed by the LDS church and can be ordered to any family history centre worldwide. Microfilm numbers for Births, Deaths and Marriages in Angus can be found on the Civil Registration page. It is necessary to know that parish number and this can be found on the list of Angus parishes. PLEASE CHECK FILM NUMBERS BEFORE ORDERING.

Details of Wills and Testaments can be found in Commissary Court Records. Persons from Arboath can be registered in the Commissary Courts of St Andrews, Brechin, Dunkeld or Edinburgh. Indexes to these records have been published by the Scottish Record Society until 1800.  Arbroath was in the Sheriffdom of Forfar and details of these records can be found on the Forfar Sheriff Court page. Records of the Commissary Courts and Sheriff Courts are held at the Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh.

• Geograph
• Flickr

Population movement can often be very difficult to trace. There are a number of publications which can help trace individuals who may have emmigrated from the county of Angus such as Tay Valley People in North America, and Tay Valley People in Australia both published by Tay Valley Family History Society along with The Scots Overseas: emigrants and adventurers from Angus and Perth by David Dobson, 1996, St Andrews.

• The transcription of the section for Arbroath from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Arbroath to another place.

Tay Valley Family History Society, based in Dundee which promotes genealogy in Angus, Perth, Fife and Kinross has published a number of books about genealogy in Angus, including regular Members Interests of research.

General History is dealt with in the following books.

History of Abroath to the present time ....,
by George Hay, Arboath 1876.

Arboath and its Abbey; or the early history of the town and abbey of Aberbrothock,
by David Miller, Edinburgh, 1860.

Additional information can also be found in the three Statistical Accounts.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference NO626438 (Lat/Lon: 56.584719, -2.610687), Arbroath which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

The records of Arbroath Burgh are to be found at Angus Archives.