Some people are easy to find in Scotland’s People records, and others less so.
Here are some simple, effective tips to help you trace those hard-to-find people.
Less Is More
You may find that some people were registered under a different name than the one you expect to find. This could be because they had a different name at birth, their details were incorrectly recorded or for various other reasons.
If you can’t find a person using their full name, try removing details. Remove initials and middle names, or leave the forename blank.
Search options
Our search options can help you find the person you’re looking for. On the search results page, select the “Refine search” bar.
You can find more relevant results by using search options, as below. You will find different results from using each search option.
Fuzzy matching
Select “Fuzzy matching” to find all entries with similar spellings to the name that you are searching for.
Names that begin with
Select “Names that begin with” to find all entries that include the name you are searching for.
For example: Searching for “Douglas” will also return entries for people named “Douglass”.
Wildcards allowed
By choosing “Wildcards allowed”, you can add an asterisk (*) into a name. This will find all entries with any letter in that space, or no letter.
For example, searching for “M*cDonald” will return both “McDonald” and “MacDonald”.
Where to start
Just beginning your research into your Scottish heritage?
Our getting started page has everything you need to take your first steps.
And our guidance page provides details of our records, what you can find in them and how they can help your research.