Scottish Blog

The General Register Office for Scotland is an arm of the Scottish Executive, which deals with the registration of births, deaths, adoptions, marriages and divorces in Scotland.

the general Register Office of Scotland preforms a duty to the Scottish people that is similar to that which the Court of the Lord Lyon preforms for Scottish heraldry and Scottish heirloom symbols.

The initial incarnation of the General Register Office for Scotland was the clergy of the Church of Scotland, who's job it was within a parish to record the baptisms and marriages of their church members. Although this effectively created records of communities, it had the shortcoming of not recording those who did not attend church and also that the records were disjointed from one area to another. At a later point the recording of deaths was also added to the responsibility of the church, this was decided by a general meeting of the Church of Scotland.

In 1854, parliament passed an act which transferred the responsibility of recording such events to Parliament itself, this in effect was the first creation of the General Register Office of Scotland, in its current form.

Currently, the General Register Office of Scotland is housed in the New Register House in Edinburgh. This has been its location since the 30th of March 1861, previous to this the General Register Office of Scotland was located in the General Register House, also in Edinburgh.