A little commentary first: IMMIGRATION means people coming INTO a country, EMIGRATION means people going OUT of a country. So records are kept by the country the people are coming into when it's IMMIGRATION and records are kept by the country the people are leaving when it's EMIGRATION records.
The soldiers and airmen's wills is interesting to me. I'm not sure I've heard of such a collection before. Excerpt: The soldiers' wills have been made available online as part of the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. The poignant documents include the last wishes of 26,000 ordinary Scottish soldiers. Most of them were killed in action, died of wounds or went missing on the Western Front. A smaller number served at Gallipoli, Salonika or in Mesopotamia.
Almost all the wills were written in their pay books by soldiers below the rank of officer, who served in the renowned Scottish infantry and cavalry regiments, as well as in many other British regiments, and all the army corps that were on active service.
In addition to the wills from the Great War, there are about 4,750 wills of Scots soldiers serving in all theatres during the Second World War, including some women auxiliaries, and several hundred from the Boer War and Korean War, and other conflicts between 1857 and 1965.
Used to be called National Archives of Scotland. NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND
NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND FAMILY HISTORY START PAGE notes
- Birth Death and Marriage Civil Records including
- Statutory registers of births, deaths and marriages from 1855
- Old Parish Registers (1553 to 1854)
- Other Presbyterian church records (1761 to 1854)
- Census records (1841 to 1911)
- Highland and Island Emigration Society records (on our ScotlandsPeople website)
- Valuation roll indexes (1855, 1865, 1875, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1930, 1935 and 1940)
- Wills and Testaments (1513 to 1925)
- Soldiers' and Airmens' Wills (1857 to 1965)
- Military Service Appeal Tribunals (1916-1918)
We also provide access to:
- Catholic Parish Registers (from 1703) from the Scottish Catholic Archives
- Coat of Arms (from 1672) from the Court of the Lord Lyon
