Sib Folk
Welcome to the website of the Orkney Family History Society

Orkney is an archipelago off the northeastern coast of Scotland.

We are a very friendly family history society, formed in 1997, and have around 1600 members.

Our office is open every weekday afternoon and manned by very knowledgeable volunteers.

All our members have online access to our family trees and other resource material, much of which has been transcribed and available for download.

Sib is the Orkney & Old English word for blood related. Do you have Orcadian roots?

Search the Orkney census for your surname:

Do you know what the Top Ten Surnames were in 1841-1921 ? click here to see / hide the table.

1841
Sinclair906
Flett759
Spence633
Muir479
Rendall473
Johnston468
Miller468
Scott462
Thomson459
Smith438
1851
Sinclair942
Flett735
Spence648
Muir522
Rendall513
Miller504
Thomson500
Johnston493
Scott476
Drever469
1861
Sinclair967
Flett650
Spence616
Muir569
Thomson540
Rendall519
Scott509
Johnston508
Miller475
Smith465
1871
Sinclair957
Flett558
Johnston550
Thomson550
Spence539
Muir530
Rendall515
Tulloch487
Scott474
Drever463
1881
Sinclair1002
Thomson568
Spence552
Johnston543
Muir543
Flett527
Scott524
Rendall523
Drever502
Tulloch491
1891
Sinclair1019
Spence538
Johnston514
Muir503
Flett502
Rendall501
Thomson477
Scott472
Drever471
Tulloch451
1901
Sinclair922
Spence491
Johnston489
Rendall479
Muir465
Flett443
Thomson442
Tulloch439
Sutherland424
Drever419
1911
Sinclair838
Rendall491
Johnston466
Flett445
Thomson416
Tulloch412
Sutherland411
Spence399
Muir396
Drever371
1921
Sinclair793
Rendall526
Thomson428
Flett421
Johnston418
Spence378
Sutherland366
Muir362
Tulloch349
Drever340

Sib Folk News

This magazine is issued quarterly to our members and also available online.
The 24 pages are full of interesting articles submitted by our members and it’s not unusual for one of these to provide a snippet of information providing a link to a missing relative.

Resources

Visitors to our office, in the Orkney Library & Archive, are ensured of a warm welcome by our volunteers. Their wealth of local knowledge, together with the great variety of collected & donated material we hold, can generally help anyone compile a detailed history of their ancestors.

The resources include: Census, BMDs, Monumental Inscriptions, Family Trees, a myriad of other social records. Much of this information is available online for our Members and the website’s search facilities allow easy retrieval of transcripts & documents.

Members Section

These pages provide additional Society information and the Members Directory.
Members can post their queries on the Message Board.