Scotland Kirkland Family Study

Profile managers: Darlene Athey-Hill [send private message], Alan Runciman [send private message], and Roy Lamberton [send private message]

Team Coordinators: Alan Runciman and Roy Lamberton

The goal of this project is to research the many Kirklands in Scotland & where possible identify common lineages & helping each other to this end. /Kirkland ancestors in the Scotland team.

To Do

• Research Kirklands in Scotland and links to their immigration to North America, Australia, New Zealand & others.

• Share sources we might have regarding the Kirklands, particularly any formal church or civil records from Scotland.

Kirkland One-Name Study

This Scotland team is part of the overall Kirkland One-Name Study. New participants are encouraged!

Will you join us?

• Add your Kirkland profiles to the study by adding the following line to their profile: [[Category: Scotland, Kirkland Name Study]]
• To add a sticker to the profile, use: {{One Name Study |name=Kirkland |category=Scotland, Kirkland Name Study}} The sticker is to be placed underneath the 'Biography' header of a profile.

Follow the link to view the Kirkland ancestors in the Scotland team.

- Please post a comment here on this page, in G2G using the project tag, or send a private message to one of the coordinators.

Sources for Scottish research

This WikiTree profile provides an excellent summary for Scottish research: Scotland Project Reliable Sources

The go-to source for the most complete records is the Registrar of Scotland’s own website Scotlands People (SP). There’s no subscription, searching the index is free, and then if wished, pay to view or download the record, but remember that any copies or pictures of documents posted in a profile from Scotlands People is subject to the Crown Copyright, and proper source Citations are required. Generally, everything seen on other free or subscription sites is a transcription (or more often a part transcription). Some scans of original Registrar’s entries can be viewed at LDS research centres but are not available online on their familysearch site.

Kirkland Origins

‘The Surnames of Scotland’^[1], is the recognised comprehensive authority on Scottish surnames. This is its Kirkland entry:

KIRKLAND

‘There are many places of this name in the shires of Dumfries, Ayr, Lanark, Stirling etc from one or other of which the surname may be derived. Johannes fil. Joh. de Kyrkeland (translation from Latin: John, son of John Kirkland) held land in the territory of Gordon c 1280 (Kelso 124). William de Kyrkland was burgess of Glasgow 1424 (LCD., p242) and in 1463 and 1471 we have mention of Alan de Kyrkelande and John de Kirkland there (REG., 389,395). George Kirkleane, burgess freeman of Glasgow, 1599 (Burgesses) and James Kirkland was appointed constable in Lanark, 1709 (Minutes, p55)’

Black above mentions place names in various counties (shires) as origins for the surname (which in turn would have been on church land) but also the name is understood to derive from someone living on land beside or owned by the church in other named places. A property sale transaction occurred in Glasgow in 1549 which captures this. The property description includes ‘Part of a tenement in the High Street extending from cathedral kirk to the market cross lands of xxx… and lands of William Kirkland on the west’^[2]. One wonders what story lies behind this William’s surname. Who knows, perhaps he’s descended from the Glasgow burgesses mentioned in Black’s.

Church Records

Church records for baptisms & marriages begin in the 1500s although many have since been lost to fire, floods, malicious destruction, mice & mishap. Deaths – or to be more precise, Burials – were not comprehensively recorded at any time prior to statutory registration. Scotland’s religious history is chequered and even today old records of Non-Conformist Presbyterian & Catholic Churches are continually added by the Registrar to its online facility. But the surviving Church of Scotland records can be regarded to be virtually 100% represented online.

Statutory Records

Statutory civil registration in Scotland was enacted in 1855 at which point churches were asked to submit all historical parish records to the Registrar who by law is now responsible for their safekeeping. There was a period of grace allowed for handover and consequently a small minority of OPRs record BMDs for a period of time after 1854 & prior to their eventual handover. But events of this minority are also registered with the Registrar. The consequence of the handover of historic church records is it’s possible to view all the extant Old Parish Records (OPRs) on the SP website.

Church (or Kirk) session books are also retained by the Registrar & many have recently become available online. These record events of a church 'business' other than BMDs, such as reprimanding unmarried mothers & naming & shaming the fathers, payments to a named 'poor persone' etc. For parishes not yet online a pre-arrangement to view the record in their Reading Room at Registrar House, Edinburgh is required.

Since 1855 all BMDs are recorded in a fixed format of fairly comprehensive details. To the researcher there is an important differentiation between these original registrations and their commercial transcriptions which typically display an abbreviated content only. Crucial helpful information can be missed by relying solely on transcriptions. To obtain SP records, a better plan is to use a free transcription site to pinpoint your ancestor of interest and armed with basic knowledge re dates & location use that to ensure you pay for the correct original record on SP.

Kirkland Lineages in Scotland

As the surname is locational not all Kirklands are related. There are a small number of early clusters evidenced in surviving church records on SP. The earliest baptism records are in Edinburgh (1596) & Glasgow (1609). After several more in the same cities (they were in fact just large villages then) it’s not until 1620 that an entry appears elsewhere, in Kirkcaldy, Fife and then in 1645 at Kilmarnock (Ayrshire).

An analysis of pre-1700 baptisms reveals that there were 5 clusters of Kirklands (but see below re Avondale). These are in

• Glasgow
• Edinburgh
• Ayrshire
• Dundee
• Fife

This indicates that Kirkland is exclusively a Lowlands name. A small sample of highland counties comprising Caithness, Ross, Sutherland & Aberdeenshire reveals not one Kirkland baptism in the period 1538-1700. Incidentally, for those who are interested in claiming a clan or tartan this brings disappointment. Lowlanders, with very few exceptions, did not belong in clans or identify with tartans. It's almost certain you are descended from one of those clusters.

Bear in mind all this is evident from surviving records – there could be other clusters lost to history. In fact there appears to be such an example affecting our Kirkland history. Just as the 1700s begin, a first baptism of a Kirkland is recorded in the parish of Avondale in Lanarkshire and over the next 50 years a total of 72 baptisms are recorded in that parish alone. (Avondale is a parish district around Strathaven about 20 miles from Glasgow.)

Baptism records for Avondale parish first appear on Scotland’s People in 1681 and between then & 1700 no Kirklands are recorded. But the index reveals a strange pattern. From that first entry in 1681 of a child to Andrew Dykes, his continuing family baptisms are the only entries until 1698, when 7 other families' children are also baptised over the course of the year. Then in 1699 61 children are recorded and another 61 recorded in 1700. This is not a credible record of family life in Avondale over that 20 year period. We will no doubt find an explanation by reading or research of records & local history. There’s probably well-documented articles. Perhaps a Kirkland researcher already knows the answer & can enlighten us?

One possible explanation which may well turn out to be the answer is it follows the period of religious turbulence between 1638 and 1690. Many church records were hidden or maliciously destroyed & many infants were baptised at field conventicles held by Covenanters, but for safety against persecution the baptisms never recorded. So, along with many other families whose baptism records were lost or destroyed, there was probably a separate Kirkland cluster very much alive and active in Avondale pre-1700s. Otherwise, how come so many Kirkland offspring suddenly appear after 1700 when baptisms re-appear in Avondale records? So Avondale should be recognised as a possible ancestral location for those who seek their Scottish roots:

• Avondale (the 6th cluster)

DNA

It will require further Y-DNA testing to extend our knowledge of these early lineages. If you are a male with the Kirkland surname or a variant and haven't already, please consider testing your yDNA. There is an established Kirkland DNA group available by following the link FTDNA

If you are not a direct male descendant but have Kirkland ancestry (male or female) you can take an autosomal DNA test to see if you can match to others of Kirkland ancestry. This may also help identify & join up lineages & branches although the autosomal test differs from the Y-test in that it is only likely to match to relatives who share a common ancestor within the last 5 or 6 generations or so.

Spelling/Name Variations

There is little evidence of Kirkland variations in the Scottish records with the exception of census records. Again, looking at pre-1700 there are no records for Kirtland or Kirtlan and only 5 for Kirklan. Occasional 'one-off' dubious spellings occur such as Kirckland and Kirklland. After statutory registration when spelling was more consistent only one Kirklan appears (a death) and it’s interesting that on birth she was in fact registered as Kirkland! There are only 4 KirklandS (ie with an ‘s’) appearances between 1538 & the present day.

It seems permanent variations mainly occurred after emigration from Scotland but to obtain as comprehensive a search result as possible SP allow wild card searches employing an *. These produce far more targeted results than, say, fuzzy searching - search on K*R*L*N*D* to capture variations which will bring up Kirtlands and Kirklands plus their other spelling variations. Note the * at the end to pick up any 's' at the end or perhaps a spurious trailing ‘e’, a common feature of older records.

Sources

1. ↑ George F Black, published in 1946
2. ↑ National Register of Archives for Scotland NRAS218/5