Eckford

The Borders Family History Society has published a booklet of Eckford monumental inscriptions. Unfortunately an old burial ground at Caverton village was ploughed up earlier this century. All of the gravestones were removed.

Graham and Emma Maxwell have transcribed and indexed the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census returns for this parish.

The parish church (Church of Scotland) has registers dating from 1694. Old Parish Registers (before 1855) are held in the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, and copies on microfilm may be consulted in local libraries and in LDS Family History Centres around the world. Later parish registers (after 1855) are often held in the National Records of Scotland as are any records of non-conformist churches in the area (often unfilmed and unindexed, and only available there).

In his entry for the Statistical Account of Scotland (compiled 1790s, see the Statistics section of the Roxburghshire page for more details) the Rev. William Paton made the following comment about deficiencies in the parish registers of Eckford in the late 18th century:

"An accurate state of baptisms cannot be obtained, as dissenters from the establishment seldom order the names of their children to be engrossed; and the register of births, marriages and burials is not regularly kept, as the parish clerk has no allowance for that purpose."

Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths began in Scotland on 1st January 1855. For further details of this see the National Records of Scotland website.

An account of the parish (history, topography etc.) may be found in the Borders Family History Society's booklet of monumental inscriptions.

• Geograph
• Flickr

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

The History of Eckford site is the result of a millennium project by the Eckford SWRI. The website includes articles about the history of Eckford, photographs of the surrounding area, and a forum.

The Morebattle Village site includes information about the history of Eckford parish.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference NT726258 (Lat/Lon: 55.524819, -2.43635), Eckford 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.

Here are some figures showing the parish's population through time:

• 1755 - 1083
• 1791 - 952
• 1801 - 973
• 1811 - 1007
• 1821 - 1133
• 1831 - 1148
• 1861 - 957

In the 1690s a tax was levied by Parliament on every hearth in Scotland. Both landowners and tenants had to pay this tax and are therefore recorded in the records which were kept at the time. A transcript of the hearth tax records for Eckford parish (NRS reference E69/21/1) is included with the list of monumental inscriptions published by the Borders Family History Society.

Most taxation records are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh.