About Us - Summary

Dumfries & Galloway Family History Society is a self-help group of members run by volunteers, whose aim is to assist Family History researchers to share the results of their research.

Currently we have around fifteen hundred members world-wide.
Our Newsletters, issued three times a year, offer members the chance to publish interests and queries, allowing other members to offer assistance. We have a well resourced Research Centre in Dumfries with a library, microfilm and microfiche of Old Parochial Registers, Census data, newspaper indexes and much more.
Most of our resources, but not all, are pre-1855 when statutory registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages was introduced in Scotland.

Post 1855 information for Scotland is accessible online through the pay-to-view website www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. On that website you will also find Old Parish Register indexes from 1553-1854,
Census Records from 1841-1901 and Wills & Testaments from 1513-1901. Images of birth certificates are available from
1855-1906, of marriages 1855-1931 and of deaths 1855-1956.
A visit to the New Register House in Edinburgh – and we know for those who live far away that may be just a pipe-dream - is well worthwhile. Certificates can be ordered directly from
New Register House in Edinburgh, though that can be costly.

You might wish to contract with a professional genealogical researcher to do your initial research for you. You will find
two local Dumfriesshire researchers who advertise
in our Newsletter and on this website.
Go to the Links page and select Ancestral Research.
Acceptance of advertisements by the Society does not imply endorsement of the services offered by advertisers.

Please note: We do not contract to do research for others;
we simply act as facilitators for researchers visiting
our area who are doing their own research.