St Fergus

Draft Monumental Inscriptions for St Fergus are held by Aberdeen And North-East Scotland FHS (ANESFHS) Members may request a lookup.

Kirk of Scotland

• OPRs held by the General Register Office, Scotland.

  GROS	Baptism	Marriage	Death
  166/1	1688-1768	1783-1819	1783-1819
  166/2	1769-1819	-
  166/3	1688-1819	-
  166/4	1819-54	1820-54	1820-54

• LDS Film numbers:

  Baptisms	Marriages	Deaths
  6902589(2)	6902590	-

• Batch numbers (for FamilySearch)

  Baptisms (C)	Marriages (M)
  C111661 C111662 C111663 C111664	M111661 M111662 M111664

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 St Fergus Kirk Session records are listed on a separate webpage.

"A strong natural rampart of closely connected clay hills, elevated by the accumulation of drift sand, and thickly covered with bent grass, divides the shore from the land ... Along this line, but of various breadth, runs a plain of the finest downs or links perhaps anywhere in Scotland, affording excellent pasture for sheep and young cattle, and capital ground for the golf-player, though perhaps rather too level for the lovers of a hazardous game. The lower part of the parish, to the extent of a mile from the shore, presents a flat appearance, from whence it gradually rises in elevation towards the western extremity, with many beautiful undulations."
Rev. James Anderson, writing in the "New Statistical Account" in 1840

• Geograph
• Flickr

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

"This parish was formerly named Langley, and originally Inverugie. It assumed its present designation in 1616; ... it belongs to the County of Banff, to which it was annexed at a very early period through the influence of the Cheynes, the ancient proprietors, who, being the hereditary Sheriffs of Banff, were naturally very desirous to have their own domains placed under their own jurisdiction." - Rev. James Anderson, writing in the "New Statistical Account" in 1840.

Being a "detached part" of lying some 20 miles away from the Banffshire "mainland", St Fergus represented one of the largest of the anomalies which were corrected on 1st May, 1891, but it was a quite straightforward one. Up until that date, the entire parish belonged to Banffshire; after that date, the entire parish belonged to Aberdeenshire. But (perhaps because it was such a large anomaly) different records for St Fergus are liable to appear under either Aberdeenshire or Banffshire.

You can view here a comprehensive Gazetteer list for St Fergus.

There is a wide range of maps available for St Fergus, 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). St Fergus will be found on "Landranger Sheet 30".
• Reproductions of late-19th century Ordnance Survey maps are published by Caledonian Maps, and are also available via Family History Societies. St Fergus will be found on sheet 87.

Maps Online

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference NK085518 (Lat/Lon: 57.555846, -1.860025), St Fergus 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.

Until 1st May, 1891,St Fergus belonged to Banffshire; thereafter it belonged to Aberdeenshire. You can view a comprehensive Gazetteer list for St Fergus including placenames culled from the Ordnance Survey "Explorer" (1:25000) map, the 1876 Ordnance Survey 1" map, the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1881 Census and Thomson's "Atlas of Scotland" (1832).

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 St Fergus:

• General Register of the Poor 1865-1927*
• Minutes

These are held by Aberdeen City Archives. The records are available for viewing, subject to the 100-year rule.
Items marked * are included in a name index compiled by Aberdeen And North-East Scotland FHS (ANESFHS), and held by both ANESFHS and Aberdeen City Archives.

• according to New Statistical Account:

  Year	1755	1775	1801	1811	1821	1831
  Population	1271	1254	1270	1378	1356	1334

• according to Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1895):

  Year	1801	1831	1861	1871	1881	1891
  Population	1270	1334	1608	1633	1527	1318

• 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.