Updated: 25 August, 2021

Historical Search Room

NRS is pleased to announce that bookings for our Historical Search Room will reopen to all customers from Monday 6 September 2021.

Our safe visit agreement [1] outlines the measures we have in place to ensure the safety of our customers. Spaces in the search room will be limited and available by appointment only. Appointments will be available for four hour slots from 10am with staggered arrivals and departures.

Prior to contacting us, please take time to read our Historical Search Room Guidance [2] (128 KB PDF) which will help to explain the changes which have been made to our service, what you can expect during your visit and the range of services which are currently available from our search room.

Please note that we are unable to offer a copy service at present and there are no printing services available in the search room, but we are keeping this under review and will provide an update when available.

If you would like to arrange a visit to our Historical Search Room please email [email protected] [3] for use our Contact Us [4] page selecting ‘Seat Booking Historical Search Room’ from the menu.

Please provide details of the records which you would like to consult. Advance notice is required for the production of all records and a total of 12 records can be requested for your booking. To comply with COVID-19 safety measures the Historical Search Room has relocated to the ground floor of General Register House.

Our search room team will process enquiries by date of receipt - please be aware that there will be significant demand for bookings and search room capacity remains at reduced levels.

Search room access is strictly by appointment only and customers should not attend on site unless they have received notification of a confirmed booking.

Our buildings are unique, many of them are Grade A listed with different factors affecting individual rooms. NRS guidance on ventilation outlines the best ways to maximise natural ventilation in our buildings and the different capacity of each room and building. We will continue to monitor ventilation levels and review our building opening hours which may allow for an increased capacity for customers in future.

Dundas Search Room

At present, access to the Dundas Search Room in the ScotlandsPeople Centre is only for those who require access for a specific business purpose. Bookings can be made through our website www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk [5] or email [email protected] [6]

Access arrangements for our Dundas Search Room are currently being reviewed and work is ongoing on the implementation of a new seat booking system.

Further information will be provided in September on the launch of the new booking system for the Dundas Search Room and our plans to widen access to all customers.

Latest updates

• Certificates
• Adoptions
• Registration Services
• Statistical publications
• NRS Learning Services
• Services to record depositors
• Contact us

Ordering a Certificate

Customers can order a certificate using Certificates and Copies [7] on our ScotlandsPeople website.

We cannot process orders received by any other contact channel or for Census and Old Parish Records. 

We understand that there may be very urgent cases where certificates are required quickly. If this is the case, please order the certificate online and then use our contact form [4] on ScotlandsPeople selecting ‘Certificates and Copies’ to provide information on your urgent requirements. 

For urgent Adoption Birth Certificates and No Trace Divorce Letters, these can be requested through the Contact Us button, on the ScotlandsPeople website [4] selecting ‘Certificates and Copies’. One of our team will then contact you.

Adoptions

Currently there is no appointment service for face to face viewing of adoption records, planning work is in progress and any update to this service will be made here.

Our team are currently working a combination of home and office working with limited access to our records. Reduced numbers of staff are in the office on a part time basis to:

• register new adoptions and to issue new adoption certificates.
• issue pre adoption birth details to enable an original birth certificate to be obtained. 

If you require information on ordering an older adoption certificate please see the Ordering a Certificate section. 

If you have any enquiries relating to adoptions please contact us by email [8].

Registration Services

Registration of Deaths and Still-births

NRS understands that this is a very distressing and difficult time for bereaved families. Registrars can take ‘remote’ registration of deaths, by telephone or electronic means and information on this is available from our Registering a Death [9] page or contact your local registration office [10] (90 KB PDF) direct, to arrange an appointment.

Registration of Births

Please check the guidance for Registration of Births [11] issued by the Registrar General for Scotland.

Registration of Marriages and Civil Partnerships

Please see Getting Married in Scotland [12] or Registering a Civil Partnership [13] for guidance issued by the Registrar General for Scotland.

If you have an urgent query about a marriage or civil partnership, please email: [email protected] [14].

Change of name

Please see Recording a Change of Name [15] for guidance issued by the Registrar General.

Our team are currently working a combination of home and office working with limited access to our records. Reduced numbers of staff are in the office on a part time basis to:

• work through a backlog of applications which were received during our service suspension period
• process any urgent applications. 

If you would like an update on a request which has already been submitted or you have an urgent application which you would like to discuss with us, please contact [email protected] [16]

We currently have limited capacity to process new applications which are non-urgent but we are working to put plans in place to increase our processing capacity in the coming months. New applications will be held in a queue and processed in strict date order, using the date they are received in the office.

Please note, we cannot accept payment other than by credit/debit card. Also, we cannot provide a new birth extract automatically but will provide information on how one can be obtained following a change of name.

If you have a query about how to have a change of name recorded please email [email protected] [16]

Re-registration of a Birth or Still-birth:

If you would like advice about the re-registration of a birth or still-birth, please email: [email protected] [17]. Please be aware that no re-registration applications will be processed until our normal service has resumed. We are keeping this under review and will provide an update as soon as this is likely to change.

Gender Recognition:

If you would like general advice about the gender recognition process or how the birth registration process works in Scotland, please email: [email protected] [18].

Corrections to register entries

Please be aware that no requests to make corrections to register entries can be processed until our normal service has resumed. We are keeping this under review and will provide an update as soon as this is likely to change.

If you would like advice about having a correction made to a register entry, please email: [email protected] [19]

‘To Whom It May Concern’ Letters

Please be aware that no requests for a ‘To Whom It May Concern’ letter can be processed until our normal service has resumed. We are keeping this under review and will provide an update as soon as this is likely to change.

If you require advice about requesting a letter from the Registrar General for Scotland to confirm that the statutory indexes have been checked and that there is no record of a current marriage or civil partnership for you, please email: [email protected] [14]

Information Regarding Services to Record Depositors

Transfer of Records to NRS

The transfer of records to NRS is currently suspended. However we continue to offer advice and guidance to our client depositors. Please contact us as follows:

• Government bodies: [email protected] [20]
• Courts and Judicial bodies: [email protected] [21]
• Private bodies and churches: [email protected] [21]

Retransmission Service

The temporary return of records (retransmission service) to client bodies from NRS restarted on a limited basis on 30th April. At present this is for outward record returns only. We intend to extend the service to include record recoveries shortly.

For cases where client bodies or depositors need urgent access to inspect their records in NRS (client inspections), arrangements are now in place to make records available. If there is a requirement to do this please contact us as follows:

• Courts and COPFS: [email protected] [21]
• Crown Estate Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland and Scottish Government: [email protected] [20]
• Private Depositors: [email protected] [21]

More Information

Which NRS services can I use?

We will continue to deliver a number of our services including:

• Statistical publications: NRS is reviewing its data gathering and release practices, and focussing efforts on priority statistics in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Users and stakeholders will be advised of any changes as soon as possible. The latest information on publication dates and further information including contact details is available on our statistics publication page [22].
• Legal documents: The legal search room remains closed to all visitors. If you require access to our legal records please contact us at [email protected] [23]. We continue to supply digital copies where they are available and have reduced numbers of essential staff in the office on a part time basis to process urgent enquiries and provide extracts from original records.
• Scottish Register of Tartans [24]: You can currently apply to register your tartan online via your account and submit enquiries via email [25]. We are registering approved tartans on our website but we are currently unable to issue tartan certificates related to recently approved registrations.
• ScotlandsPeople [26]: our online services are available as usual and our teams are currently working from home to make new records available for release. We recently released the Radical Rising of 1820 within our Virtual Volumes record set [27], which can be viewed for free with a small charge to download a copy to an online personal account. There are a number of our records [28] which you can search and view for free. ScotlandsPlaces [29] also offers a range of free resources which will help to support your research and ScottishHandwriting [30] website, offers free online tuition in palaeography for anyone who is having difficulties reading manuscript historical records written in Scotland.
• NRS Learning Services: Teachers, pupils and learners of all ages and stages can access and engage with our online resources via the Learning [31]section of the NRS website. The resources available at Services for Schools [32] and Scottish Archives for Schools [33] are designed to support the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and National Qualifications. If you have any enquiries, contact us by email [34].
• NRS Web Continuity Service continues to operate. If you have any questions please contact [email protected] [35].
• Public Records Scotland Act (PRSA): The Records Management Plan and Progress Update Review rolling programme of assessment [36]continues as normal. We do however appreciate that many of our stakeholder authorities will themselves be experiencing disruption during this time. Please contact the team by email [37] if you have any queries or concerns.
• National Register of Archives for Scotland: Access to records held privately has necessarily been withdrawn during this period. The NRAS however continues to offer advice and guidance to owners and researchers, please contact us by email [38].
• Advice and support for the archive sector: It is important to ensure that archive collections remain safe and secure. The National Archives has useful webpages [39] covering collections safety, Archive Service Accreditation, and a list of useful guidance and resources from other organisations.
• Disaster or incident control advice relating to archive collections can be provided remotely by the NRS Preservation team.  Please contact [email protected] [40].
• Exhibition Loans: NRS is not accepting new external loan requests at this time. This position will be reviewed in April 2022.

Contact Us

Your enquiry is important to us and we will do our best to get back to you as soon as possible. Due to current circumstances, we may not meet standard timescales for response and our normal access to our records may be limited, which will impact on the information and copies which we can provide at this time. To help you get to the right team as quickly as possible, we have provided a list of our direct email addresses which can be used to contact us with your enquiry.

Service	Email Address
Adoptions	[email protected] [8]
Change of Name	[email protected] [16]
Correction of Statutory Registration errors	[email protected] [19]
Data Protection	[email protected] [41]
Divorces	Indexes for divorces from 1984 can be viewed at ScotlandsPeople at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [42]. For divorces from 1919 to 1984 [email protected] [43].
Freedom of Information	[email protected] [44]
Gender Recognition	[email protected] [18]
General Registration Queries	[email protected] [18]
Advice and guidance to bodies who deposit historical records with us	[email protected] [21]
Advice and guidance for Government bodies, agencies & departments	[email protected] [20]
Historical and Legal Documents	Contact us through ScotlandsPeople at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [42] or if unable to access the website then contact us at [email protected] [45]
Learning Services	[email protected] [34]
Local organisation unit	[email protected] [46]
Marriages and Civil Partnerships	[email protected] [14]
Media Enquiries	[email protected] [47]
Scotlands Census 2021enquiries	[email protected] [48]
Multi-Lingual Translation Aids	[email protected] [49]
National Register of Archives for Scotland - Research and advice to private owners of archive collections	[email protected] [38]
Preservation/ Conservation of Records	[email protected] [50]
Public Records (Scotland) Act - Submission of Records Management plans or advice	[email protected] [51]
Re-registration of a Birth or Still-birth	[email protected] [17]
ScotlandsPeople service	Contact us through the website at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [42] or [email protected] [6]
Scottish Register of Tartans	[email protected] [25]
Statistical data	[email protected] [52]
Wills up to 1925	Contact us through the website at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [42]
Wills from 1925 to 1999 are available on a limited basis.	[email protected] [45]
Wills more modern than the year 2000 are not held by us.	Scottish Courts should be contacted at [email protected] [53].

We are able to answer general enquiries via our phone lines as a means of support for customers who do not have access to email or for those who have urgent enquiries. Please contact us on 0131 202 0451 and one of our staff team will be happy to help. Our helpline is open Monday to Friday 10 am to 12 am.