Bonkle Church Information and Contacts

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Bonkle Church Contacts
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Contacts at Bonkle Church

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Links to other churches and church organisations

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Links to other local organisations

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Links for Ancestry Search

Due to the number of requests for "Roots" we present the following list of links. I have not checked them all, so please let me know if any are wrong or have been removed. The list of Churches on the net (above, Church of Scotland etc.) may also be useful, as may libraries Heritage Centres etc. (above)
Please note that we CANNOT undertake ancestry searches. Our own church records are only of the Church Role containing the names of members and when they were removed (perhaps by death) and the Babtismal and Marriage Role. If you are SURE that your ancestors were connected with Bonkle or Coltness Memorial Church, Newmains. (We do NOT have access to the records of other churches) we can look for them in the records we hold i.e. those AFTER 1925. Our older records, like most other churches, are in the Scottish Archives in Edinburgh. These are all hand written and would require a personal visit. Unlike Bonkle, the Newmains, Wishaw and Motherwell area is very large with a large number of churches.
On this information page there are links to places than can be searched for names. The General Registry Office, Scotland (births etc.) is a good place to start. This contains online databases of the 10 year census from 1840 and register of births etc. from about 1855 when the government made registration compulsory. These can be searched online so are the best starting point. The Registry Office in Shotts and Motherwell will also hold the original paper records of these areas.
Before this the churches kept the records. The Roman Catholic church hold their own records - I think in Glasgow. The old PARISH churches, such as Kirk o' Shotts and Cambusnethan (Wishaw and Motherwell area) sent their records to Edinburgh and these have been microfilmed, copies being held in the local libraries/ heritage centres.
Shotts library has the Parish of Shotts records. The Heritage Centre in Motherwell has the Parishes of Shotts and Cambusnethan. These records are not always complete and some are in so bad condition as to be partly, or fully, unreadable After the 1730s the Sessession Churches formed. Most of their records have been sent to the National Archives in Edinburgh but some are still held locally and a lot have been lost or are in very poor condition. They have NOT been microfilmed and are only available in Edinburgh. This complicates things no end. People from Shotts would originally be recorded at Kirk O' Shotts but after the Sessession they may well have attended the original Bonkle church - The Moor Kirk of Cambusnethan. This church rapidly subdivided - Shottsburn & Erskine being two of many. I don't know where Calderhead fits in. The advent of coal and iron in Shotts, Newmains and Wishaw caused a large influx from Ireland causing further complications (I believe the Irish records were destroyed by fire). Searches are best carried out by the interested person as a lot of background details are required to get anywhere. The Archives require a personal visit which is charged. Local libraries will, however, allow you to personally search at no cost. No online facilities are available that I know of but there are firms who will undertake the searches - I would think that they would be expensive because of time involved in reading through the old books. Visits to graveyards may also be required.
Membership of some of the bodies mentioned can be a help. The Mormon's site is free - you may just find something but it was of no help to me. Some other bodies are compiling surname indexes.
If the family has been static in the one place over a long period of time things are much easier. Each generation of my family seems to have moved to a different parish causing severe problems! Using the Scottish Office records I got back easily to 1840 but, due to poor church records, though I could find my surname back to 1700, I could not link them due to "missing links" caused by the unreadable, or poorly recorded, data. Some may have joined a Sessession church. Births were recorded without date, child's name or sex.
This is obviously NOT an area where any of us could get personally involved - it is just too time consuming. I reckon that my cousin and myself must have spent about 50 hours each on it and not got very far Hope this helps
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