Cullen

Unpublished MIs for this parish are held by Aberdeen & N.E. Scotland F.H.S. and members may request lookups.

Aberdeen And North-East Scotland FHS (ANESFHS) have published a name Index to the 1851 Census for Banffshire. Cullen (together with Fordyce and Deskford) is published as code AA214. Note however, that in the 1851 Census, the western "annexed part" of Cullen quoad sacra parish appears as Registration Districts 17 and 18 of Rathven parish. (For an explanation of this, see the section Historical Geography below).

ANESFHS also hold unpublished indexes and transcriptions of the 1861 Census for most Banffshire parishes (including Cullen). The former "annexed part" of Cullen is enumerated separately as Seafield.

Kirk of Scotland

• OPRs held by the General Register Office, Scotland.

  GROS	Baptism	Marriage	Death
  150/1	1668-82	1642-77	1640-48
  150/2	1682-1727	1684-1727	-
  150/3	1727-82	1728-81	-
  150/4	1782-1819	1782-1819	-
  150/5	1820-54	1820-54	1835-52

• LDS Film numbers:

  Baptisms	Marriages	Deaths
  6901973(3)	6901974(1)	990821

• Batch numbers (for FamilySearch)

  Baptisms (C)	Marriages (M)
  C111501 C111502 C111503 C111504	M111501 M111502 M111503

Kirk Session Records

Kirk Session records generally include records of Discipline, which often include information on illegitimate births, and Accounts, which may mention persons on Poor Relief. The surviving Cullen Kirk Session records are listed on a separate webpage.

As part of the ongoing complication caused by the "annexed part of Rathven" (see Historical Geography for details), there is an oddity in the Civil Registrations for Cullen. In the first year of Civil Registration (1855), two Registration Districts were set up: "Cullen Burgh" (ref no 150/1) and "Cullen Landward" (ref no 150/2). In 1856, these were changed to "Cullen" (ref no 150) and "Seafield" (ref no 167). "Cullen Burgh" and then "Cullen" covered the area of "Cullen proper", while "Cullen Landward", and subsequently "Seafield", approximated to the area of the "annexed part of Rathven".

Cullen in 1769

Cullen in 1790

Cullen in 1842

• Geograph
• Flickr

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

According to the writer of the New Statistical Account of Scotland (1842): "The parish of Cullen originally formed part of the parish of Fordyce, from which it was disjoined at a very remote period." This splitting off seems to have occurred well before any of the surviving records of the parishes concerned, and can be ignored for practical purposes.

However, the annexation of part of Rathven parish to Cullen quoad sacra (that is, "for church purposes"), while it also seems to have occurred in the distant past, definitely does have implications for genealogical research. Details will be found in the article on Cullen quoad sacra

There is a wide range of maps available for Cullen, historical and modern, on paper and online. Many ancient placenames continue in use, and will therefore appear on modern maps, but as parishes ceased to be of any significance for Local Government in Scotland in 1974, parish boundaries will be found only on historical maps.

Maps on Paper

• The best general-purpose modern printed map is the Ordnance Survey "Landranger" Series, which has a scale of 1:50000 (about one-and-a-quarter inches to a mile). Cullen will be found on "Landranger Sheet 29".
• Reproductions of late-19th century Ordnance Survey maps are published by Caledonian Maps, and are also available via Family History Societies. Cullen will be found on sheet 96.

Maps Online

• The small location plan at the head of this page is based on an 1845 map included in the Banffshire volume of the New Statistical Account of Scotland. View a fully-detailed version of this map.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference NJ516663 (Lat/Lon: 57.684131, -2.813196), Cullen 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.

You can view a comprehensive Gazetteer list including placenames culled from the Ordnance Survey "Explorer" (1:25000) map, the 1896 Ordnance Survey 1" map, the 1841, 1851 and 1861 Census and Thomson's "Atlas of Scotland" (1832).

Cullen
Cullen 'Quoad Sacra'

According to the author of the article in the New Statistical Account, writing in 1842:

"The names more peculiar to the parish, and of oldest standing are, Anderson, Coul, Davidson, Finlay, Forsyth, Gardiner, Hay, Ogilvie, Runcie, Simpson, Strahan, and Wright. In consequence of the frequent identity of Christian and surnames among the fishing population, caused by intermarriages, certain extra names are used to distinguish individuals. Thus, there are several heads of families of the respective names of Alexander Addison, James Addison, and William Addison, who are thus distinguished, viz. Alexander Addison, Saunders; Alexander Addison, Kitty's Saunie; Alexander Addison, Drodlie; James Addison, Kitty's Jamesy; James Addison, Tatie Fiddler; James Addison, Bubblie; William Addison, Sheepie; William Addison, Boatierow; William Addison, Calkinapin; William Addison, May's Wilsie. "

The author of the article in the New Statistical Account, writing in 1842, adds a detailed breakdown of numbers of each occupation in the parish.

Under the "Poor Law Amendment Act, Scotland" (1845) responsibility for Poor Relief was taken from the Parishes of the Kirk of Scotland, and vested in new Parochial Boards, whose territories largely coincided with the old parishes. The Parochial Boards were not (as in England) grouped into Poor Law Unions, and there were few Poorhouses outside the cities and large towns.

Day-to-day administration of the Poor Law was in the hands of the Inspector of the Poor for each parish, and these Inspectors were obliged by law to maintain detailed records of applications and of relief supplied. The most valuable of these are the "Record of Applications" and the "General Register of the Poor". The "Minutes" are very variable, but on occasion can also contain information on named individuals.

The following Poor Law records have survived for the Parish of Cullen:

• Minutes

These are held by Aberdeen City Archives. The records are available for viewing, subject to the 100-year rule.

• according to New Statistical Account:

  Year	1791	1801	1811	1821	1831	1841
  Population	1214	1076	1070	1452	1593	1564

  These figures refer to "Cullen proper", that is, excluding the "annexed part of Rathven". The writer of the Statistical Account of Scotland provided the following additional information for 1791:

  Cullen, proper:	1214
  Annexed part of Rathven:	505

  The writer of the New Statistical Account of Scotland similarly noted the following additional figures for 1841:

  Cullen proper	Town of Cullen	712
  	Seatown of Cullen	710
  	Rural district	142
  Annexed part of Rathven	Village of Portknockie	725
  	Rural district	333

• according to Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895):

  Year	1801	1831	1861	1871	1881	1891
  Population	1076	1593	1975	2215	2236	2319

• Aberdeen & NE Scotland FHS

You can also see Family History Societies covering the nearby area, plotted on a map. This facility is being developed, and is awaiting societies to enter information about the places they cover.