This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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GROS celebrates its 150th birthday
12/01/2005
Scotland's system of registering births, deaths and
marriages is celebrating its 150th anniversary.
At a special General Register Office for Scotland (GROS)
Open Day at New Register House in Edinburgh Deputy Finance
Minister Tavish Scott said it was a much-admired and
much-loved system that continued to evolve to meet the
needs of people across Scotland.
Mr Scott said:
"Civil registration was introduced in Scotland
on January 1, 1855, and I am delighted to take part in the
celebrations 150 years later and to highlight how important
this system has been to Scotland's history.
"The system is continuing to evolve and I recently
published proposals to make our system even more accessible
and flexible by introducing on-line systems to advertise
forthcoming marriages, more flexibility regarding where
births and deaths can be registered and increasing choice
for couples who wish to marry at sea.
"This is all good news for people across Scotland, and
also overseas Scots who want to celebrate their Scottish
heritage."
Registrar General Duncan Macniven added:
"Scotland was well behind the rest of Britain in
replacing the old parish registers with a modern system of
civil registration. But the present system has worked well
for 150 years and we are keeping it bang up to date.
"We probably lead the world in making registration
information available to genealogists through our family
history website
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk."
The Act introducing the registration of births, deaths
and marriages in Scotland took effect on January 1,
1855.
It replaced the system dating from 1551, when the parish
churches were supposed to keep a register of baptisms and
marriages (and, later, burials).
But the 1801 Census found out that, of the 850 parishes
in Scotland, not more than 99 had regular registers, the
rest having only occasional entries or no register
whatever.
This was replaced in 1855 by the present system where
local registrars, supervised by the Registrar General, keep
a record of all events, with a duplicate copy at the
General Register Office for Scotland in Edinburgh.
Today, records of births, marriages and deaths are
stored on a computer in Edinburgh - very different from the
leather-bound volumes of 150 years ago.
The demographic statistics are different too:
- Scotland's total population, in the 1851 Census,
was 2.89 million, compared with just over 5 million
today
- Over 93,000 babies were born in 1855, compared to
52,000 in 2003
- In 1855, the number of deaths was much lower than
the number of births - 62,000, compared to 58,000 in
2003
- In 1855, there were 19,680 marriages, compared to
30,757 in 2003
- The population of Edinburgh was 260,000 in 1851,
compared to 448,000 in 2003