General Register Office for Scotland (GROS)

The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) is the department of the devolved Scottish Administration responsible for the registration of births, marriages, deaths, divorces and adoptions in Scotland, and for carrying out periodic censuses of Scotland’s population. Further details are available from the General Register Office for Scotland.

Online family history services are provided through ScotlandsPeople. This website is a joint initiative between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon. A pay-per-view website, including indexes to digital images of the statutory registers of births (1855-1905), marriages (1855-1930) and deaths (1855-1955) for Scotland, the 1851, 1861, 1871, 1891 and 1901 Scottish censuses, and indexes to the 1881 census and Old Parish Registers of baptisms and marriages.

Such indexes are part of an ongoing project, called the Digital Imaging of the Genealogical Records of ScotlandsPeople, to make all records available digitally online.

Additionally there is a very good Family Records section on the GROS website, including lists of all the records held, information on how to visit, and other useful factsheets.

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