Researching Scottish Emigration to North America

Tracing an ancestor who left Scotland for North America is one of the most rewarding puzzles in family history. The paper trail often begins in a Scottish parish and ends on a prairie farm, a Nova Scotia coastal village or a mill town in New England. Follow it patiently, working from what you know towards what you do not, and a surprising amount of detail will emerge.

Begin with the family papers at home

Before you search a single catalogue, gather everything the family already holds. Letters, postcards, a worn photograph with a studio name on the back, a Bible with births recorded in it, a bundle of emigration accounts — these scraps frequently name the emigrant's home parish, which is the key that unlocks everything else.

Then fix your ancestor in Scottish records before the crossing. Civil registration began in 1855, so birth, marriage and death certificates from that year onwards will give parents' names and, often, a precise address. Before 1855 you rely on the Old Parish Registers, which are patchy but frequently can be supplemented by estate papers and kirk session minutes. The Scottish censuses from 1841 to 1921 place the family in a household and give ages, occupations and birthplaces. Confirm the last Scottish sighting of your emigrant before you go looking for a departure.

Scottish records that record departure

Scotland kept no central emigration register, but departures leave echoes in several collections.

• Poor relief records are among the most valuable. A parent applying for relief in the 1860s or 1870s often had to state where their children were, and applications routinely mention a son in Canada or a daughter who had gone to the States and sent money home.
• Assisted emigration schemes left detailed lists of families, ages, origins and destinations. The largest helped Highland families to Canada in the 1850s, and the schedules survive in the national archives.
• Kirk session and presbytery minutes record applications for testimonials — certificates of good standing that emigrants needed before joining a church abroad.
• Estate and factor papers for large Highland and Lowland estates sometimes list tenants who emigrated, with the rent they owed and the assistance given.
• Newspapers carried shipping intelligence advertising sailings from Greenock, Glasgow, Leith, Aberdeen and Dundee, with names of intending passengers and agents' notices. Local weekly papers are often the only surviving record of a family's departure.

Outward and inward passenger lists

Passenger lists before 1820 are thin on the ground; most surviving records are ships' manifests kept for customs purposes, and many have not survived at all. From 1820 the United States required captains to submit lists of arriving passengers, and from about 1833 to 1863 these custom-house lists are still being indexed. Canadian arrivals are recorded from 1865 onwards.

Two things trap researchers. First, the great majority of Scots bound for North America sailed from Liverpool rather than a Scottish port, because Liverpool's ships were cheaper and more frequent — so search English departures if you cannot find a Scottish one. Second, families often travelled in stages, and a single group may appear on several lists with different spellings of the same surname.

For arrivals into the United States, searching indexes by name, approximate age and year of arrival works well, but remember that a Scot who landed at Quebec or Halifax and travelled overland into the United States may appear only in the Canadian lists or, from 1895 onwards, in the border crossing records kept at St Albans, Vermont. Canadians moving south to work often crossed and re-crossed several times, generating a string of records.

Naturalisation and citizenship records

Naturalisation files are gold dust because they ask the applicant to state the date and port of arrival, the name of the ship and a birthplace. In the United States the process usually ran in two stages: a declaration of intention, often filed within a few years of arrival, and a petition for naturalisation filed after a set period of residence. From 1906 the paperwork became standardised and much more consistent.

In Canada, naturalisation was a quieter affair. Before the twentieth century most settlers from Scotland were simply British subjects and had no need to naturalise, so the absence of a certificate proves nothing. From 1917 onwards, however, records of naturalisation exist for those who applied. Look also at militia and military attestation papers, passport applications and consular registrations, all of which typically include a place of birth.

Documents of settlement

Once you know roughly where the family settled, local records will fill in the story. Land grant and homestead files — for example those created under the American Homestead Act of 1862 or the Canadian Dominion Lands Act of 1872 — contain applications that describe the settler, the family and their progress. County deed registers record the land transactions that followed.

North American censuses are generous: the United States census from 1850 onwards names every household member and gives ages, occupations and birthplaces, while Canadian censuses are similarly detailed. Then turn to church registers, cemetery inscriptions, obituaries in local newspapers, and the records of Scottish societies and Presbyterian congregations, which often preserved a connection to the old parish. An obituary written in a prairie town may name the village in Scotland that no other record mentions.

Practical habits that pay off

• Work a timeline. Write down every dated event for your emigrant and let the gaps show you where to search next.
• Respect spelling drift. Mac and Mc were used interchangeably, and Gaelic names were often anglicised and then shortened by clerks who had never heard them spoken.
• Search the neighbours. Scots emigrated in groups, often from the same parish. If you find one family, look at the households around them — you will frequently find relatives.
• Accept that some crossings are invisible. Not everyone appears in a passenger list. When the direct record fails, build the story from land, church and newspaper evidence instead, and you will still have a life worth documenting.