Scottish Records Online - 1797 Horse Tax

It has been about three years since I put a transcription of the 1797 horse tax for the Pairh of Urr in Kirkcudbright on a website. Today I have discovered that the horse tax lists for the entire country have been digitized and is now online. There is no searchable index. The images of the lists can be downloaded or saved. The lists are organized by county and then by parish. The name of the man who had the horses is recorded as well as how many horses he had and how much tax was paid. It also records the name of the land or estate that he occupied. Typically parish registers do not record the estate a family lived on. The horse tax is one source of many that one would put on his or her list to look at while at the National Archives. Also on this website is a record of all land owners in Scotland in 1872. I look forward to more records being put online. The guide for these little known or used records is the book, Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors.
At ScotlandPeoples website the probate indexes are available to 1900. They just put Catholic records on their website. The price to access these records is very reasonable and sometimes free. The record that I think would be of most value will be the militia lists created prior to and during the Napoleonic Wars (1800 to 1815). Kirkcudbrightshire has milita records that cover most parishes in the county. I have put the parish of Urr militia records online

Dumfries Newspaper

Dumfries first newspaper started in 1777. The newspaper article about Aucheninnes came from the Dumfries and Galloway Standard. I put a transcription of the newspaper article yesterday on my website dated January 7 1856. The key to using the newspaper is the paper index that is available. When I was at Ewart library in Dumfries, I couldn't image anyone trying to read the newspaper on microfiche. The print is small and somewhat blurry. The index gets you on the right page and cloumn.
The newspaper covers the Galloway region. The index on this page is Mckenzie's in the area in the 1840' and 1850's. In the parish of Urr there was only one Mckenzie family, that also included Dalbeattie. Dalbeattie was the most populated place in the parish. The Mckenzie's had a long lease on the Aucheninnes farm that apparently ended in 1856. I'm uncertain how long they were on the farm. The voters list for 1835 indicates that they were on the farm in 1835, so they were their at least 20 years or more. Lets hope that they digitize the Dumfries Newspaper soon and put it online.

National Archives of Scotland

The purpose of going to Scotland was to connect to the homeland of my Scottish Ancestors and access so many of the records that were not available in Salt Lake City. It has been over 10 years since I first visited. I went to New Register House paid a fee and was able to look at births, deaths, and marriages on microfiche and get copies. That was before the time of ScotlandsPeople website. Now for less than $2 I can search the databases and buy a certificate. It is the same for census records. Within minutes it appears on my computer screen. Probate records prior to 1900 can now be searched and bought for less than $8.
A highlight of the visit was to the National Archives of Scotland. Those records referred to in the book, Tracing your Scottish Ancestors were accessible. I’m not referring to microfilm copies. The original documents are available for inspection. I obtained many copies of records. I looked at voter rolls, various tax records, Kirk Session, and church records other than the Church of Scotland. i.e. Antiburgher, United Presbyterian, Free Church, Catholic. I might add that they still are not available online.
I found a set of records only referred to in ‘Militia Lists and Musters 1757-1876’. The author of this booklet noted that he had not examined this set of records. I was quite surprised to find an extensive collection of militia lists mainly from the 1802, 1808 time period for Kirkcudbright County. I have created a website for some of these records.

Finding Ancestors in a Scottish Parish

I have visited the parish of Urr a couple of times over the years. I found the gravestones of Robert Mckenzie and William McNaught who are my ancestors in the churchyard. I also went to the National Archives of Scotland and looked at other records that relate to the parish. I found voter rolls, and militia rolls for the parish. The best reference book available is, “Tracing your Scottish Ancestors” This book was published by the Scottish Record Office which is now known as the ‘National Archives of Scotland’, it has the reference numbers and records types which makes it easy to navigate the Archives. My ancestor, Robert Mckenzie, had a long lease on land in the parish at a place called, Auchennines. Auchennienes was 220 acres of land directly east of Dalbeattie bordering on the parish of Kirkgunzeon. I did not find him in the the sasine records since he was leasing the land as many farmers did. I found Robert Mckenzie in the Kirkgunzeon horse tax of 1799. He is not in the parish registers. He died in 1838 and his estate was probated in 1841 at Castle Douglas. He died without a will, so the document is referred to as testament-dative. I have an inventory of his property, and a comment in the record which refers to the executor, John Mckenzie, as being the only son of Robert Mckenzie. John Mckenzie, my ancestor, was born in the parish in 1804. His birth is not in the parish register. A book about the parish of Urr was published in 1909 and reprinted in 1993. It is, The Parish of Urr, Civil and Ecclesiastical: A History