Church records

The formal records of the parishes comprising the former Presbyteries of St Andrews and Cupar are held in Special Collections by permission of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland. They consist of the surviving minute books of Kirk Sessions and Congregational Boards, as well as communion, baptism and proclamation rolls, accounts, guilds and property documents, for all of the parishes of the East Neuk and North-East Fife. The amount of material available varies from parish to parish, and includes records for many of the non-established congregations which have subsequently re-united with the Church of Scotland.

Church of Scotland records are known as the CH2 series; other denominations, often Free Churches, are CH3. Those Free Churches which re-joined the Church of Scotland in 1929 will be found in this latter series. Legislation states that Church of Scotland records must be given to the National Records of Scotland when they are over 50 years old and no longer in use; for other denominations this is optional.

A full handlist is available and records are being added to the online catalogue.

In addition, we also hold records of some other congregations, for example, the Episcopal and Congregational congregations in St Andrews, as well as other business and less formal records of some of the parishes included within the CH classes above (msdep11, msdep18, msdep47, msdep23, msdep49, msdep67).

Images of the collection