Orkney sits above the northern tip of Scotland. Seventy islands. Ancient stone monuments. A coastline carved by the Atlantic. And somewhere in those windswept parishes, your ancestors may have lived, farmed, and eventually sailed away.
This Orkney ancestry trail guide shows you how to find your Northern Isles roots. If your family name is Flett, Rendall, Groundwater, Linklater, Clouston, or Marwick, you have come to the right place.
The Orkney Ancestry Trail: Why This Research Is Different
Orkney is not quite Scottish, and not quite Norse. It is something in between.
Norse settlers arrived around AD 800. They displaced — or absorbed — the earlier Pictish population. For the next six centuries, Orkney was part of Norway and Denmark. It came to Scotland in 1468, when the Danish king pledged the islands as security for his daughter’s dowry. He never paid it back.
That Norse past shapes everything about Orkney ancestry research. Place names, family names, and even some church records reflect a culture distinct from mainland Scotland. Researchers with Orkney roots often find Norwegian DNA in their genetic results — sometimes as much as 30 to 35 per cent. That is not surprising. The Norse settlers were here for a long time.
For a broader introduction to how Scottish ancestry research works, read our step-by-step guide to tracing your Scottish ancestry. Then come back here for the Orkney-specific detail.
Orcadian Surnames and What They Tell You
Orkney surnames are some of the most distinctive in Scotland. Many come directly from Old Norse words.
Flett comes from the Norse for “fled” or “swift.” It was common in the West Mainland and North Isles. Groundwater is a classic Orcadian name, most common in Rendall and Evie parishes. Linklater means “heather slope” in Old Norse — and points to a family from that very landscape.
Other typical Orcadian names include: Marwick (from a place in Birsay), Clouston (from the parish of Stenness), Rendall (both a parish and a surname), Sinclair (linked to the earls who ruled Orkney for centuries), Isbister (meaning “east farm” in Norse), and Heddle (from a Stenness farm name).
If your surname appears on that list, Orkney is almost certainly part of your story. Our article on how your Scottish surname leads to a specific place explains how place-names became family names across Scotland.
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Claim Your Free Scottish Ancestry Guide →The Hudson’s Bay Company Connection
Here is something most people with Orkney roots do not know.
For nearly two centuries, the Hudson’s Bay Company recruited its workers almost entirely from Orkney. The company needed tough, practical men who could survive brutal winters in the Canadian interior. Orcadian farmers fit that description perfectly.
Between 1700 and 1900, roughly a third of all HBC employees came from Orkney. They canoed rivers in Manitoba. They traded in Saskatchewan. They built forts across what is now western Canada. Many stayed.
If your Scottish-Canadian ancestors came from the prairies — particularly Manitoba or the Red River Settlement — there is a strong chance they passed through Orkney first. The HBC Archives in Winnipeg hold crew lists and service records. The Orkney Archive in Kirkwall holds the parish records that document their births and baptisms back in Scotland.
Where to Find Orcadian Records
ScotlandsPeople is the starting point for any Scottish genealogy search. It holds Old Parish Records (OPRs) for Orkney parishes, some going back to the 1600s. It also holds civil registration records from 1855, census records from 1841 to 1921, and kirk session minutes.
The Orkney parishes you can search include: Birsay, Evie, Orphir, Stenness, Stromness, St Ola (Kirkwall), Firth, Rendall, Harray, Sandwick, Deerness, St Andrews, South Ronaldsay, Holm, Burray, Westray, Papa Westray, North Ronaldsay, Sanday, Stronsay, Shapinsay, and Rousay.
The Orkney Archive in Kirkwall holds material not available online. This includes estate papers, school records, sasines (land transfers), local newspapers, and maps. The archive staff are experienced in helping family historians. You do not need to know exactly what you are looking for before you arrive.
The Orkney Family History Society publishes research notes, runs workshops, and maintains burial indexes and monumental inscription records. Their resources are especially useful for tracing families in smaller parishes where OPRs are incomplete.
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A Walk Through Kirkwall
If you visit Orkney, start in Kirkwall. It is the main town, and it holds two sites every heritage visitor should see.
St Magnus Cathedral stands in the centre of town. Construction began in 1137. Earl Rögnvald Kali Kolsson built it in honour of his uncle Magnus, who was murdered on the island of Egilsay in 1117. The cathedral has been in continuous use for nearly 900 years. Walk inside and you will find memorial stones for Orcadian families going back centuries. Some of your ancestors may be recorded on those walls.
The Orkney Archive sits on Junction Road, a short walk from the cathedral. Visiting in person is worthwhile if you have specific research questions. Staff can often point you toward sources that do not appear in online searches.
Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, and Deep Time
Orkney’s prehistoric past predates Norse settlement by thousands of years.
Skara Brae is a Neolithic village on the west coast. It was buried in sand dunes for thousands of years and exposed by a storm in 1850. Walking through the village today, you can see the stone beds, hearths, and storage boxes of people who lived here 5,000 years ago. They kept their belongings in stone cupboards. They had neighbours. They gathered around fires.
The Ring of Brodgar is a stone circle built around 2500 BC. It stands between two lochs on the Mainland. It is older than Stonehenge.
Your Norse ancestors — the ones who arrived in the 800s — would have seen these same monuments. They would have wondered about the people who built them, just as we do now. That sense of standing in a long line of human connection is one of the most powerful feelings in heritage travel.
DNA Testing and Orkney Roots
DNA testing gives Orkney researchers a useful extra layer of evidence.
If you have Scottish ancestry but your ethnic estimate shows Norwegian, Scandinavian, or broadly Northern European DNA, that is worth examining. A significant Norwegian result in a Scottish-heritage profile often points to Orkney or Shetland.
Y-DNA testing is useful for male-line research. Norse migration is tied to specific haplogroups. I1 is strongly Scandinavian. Certain R1b subclades cluster in the Northern Isles. These results can narrow your documentary search considerably.
Our full guide to DNA testing for Scottish ancestry explains how to match genetic results with documentary records step by step.
The Clearances and Emigration From Orkney
The Highland Clearances hit parts of Orkney, though less severely than the mainland Highlands.
Some landowners in the North Isles evicted crofting families to make way for kelp harvesting. When kelp prices collapsed in the 1820s, many families had nothing to return to. They left for Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
The Highland Clearances Trail covers this history across Scotland. For Orkney specifically, check the estate papers and rental records at the Orkney Archive. They can often tell you exactly when a family left a farm and where they went next.
To understand the social structure that shaped life before the Clearances, read our article on what clan really meant in Scotland. Orkney had its own version of this system, shaped more by Norse law than by Gaelic custom.
Planning Your Orkney Heritage Visit
Getting to Orkney is straightforward. Northlink Ferries run from Scrabster, near Thurso, to Stromness. They also run from Aberdeen to Kirkwall. The Scrabster crossing takes around 90 minutes. Loganair flies from Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Inverness.
If you want to visit other Scottish islands as part of your ancestry search, our Scotland Island Ancestry Trail covers the Hebrides and Shetland alongside Orkney.
A Suggested Two-Day Itinerary
Day 1: Arrive in Kirkwall. Visit St Magnus Cathedral in the morning. Spend the afternoon at the Orkney Archive on Junction Road — book ahead for a research visit. Walk through the Old Town and look for family names on memorial plaques and kirkyard stones.
Day 2: Drive to the Ring of Brodgar in the morning. Continue to Skara Brae on the west coast. In the afternoon, explore the parish church at Birsay or Stenness, depending on your family connection.
Practical Notes
- The Orkney Archive is open Monday to Thursday, 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 4.30pm. Friday 9am to 1pm only. Book ahead for research appointments.
- Car hire is available in Kirkwall. A car is essential for reaching the Mainland’s main sites and ferry ports for the smaller islands.
- Orkney Family History Society volunteers can sometimes accompany you to graveyards in rural parishes. Ask the Archive staff about this service.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Orkney ancestry research different from mainland Scotland?
Orkney’s Norse heritage means many family names and place names have Old Norse origins rather than Gaelic roots. The islands also have their own archive in Kirkwall, separate from the National Records of Scotland, which holds unique local material not available through ScotlandsPeople.
Where are the best Orkney genealogy records held?
ScotlandsPeople holds the main civil and church records online. The Orkney Archive in Kirkwall holds estate papers, local newspapers, school records, and material not available digitally. For Hudson’s Bay Company connections, the HBC Archives in Winnipeg, Canada are essential.
Why do many Scottish-Canadians have Orkney roots?
The Hudson’s Bay Company recruited heavily from Orkney between the 1700s and 1900s. Orcadian men were valued for their toughness and practical skills. Many who completed their HBC service chose to stay in Canada, settling in Manitoba and Ontario.
How do I know if my DNA result points to Orkney ancestry?
DNA tests from AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and FamilyTreeDNA often show Norwegian or Scandinavian ancestry in people with Orkney roots. A result showing 20 to 35 per cent Scandinavian DNA alongside Scottish heritage is a strong indicator of Orcadian ancestry worth researching further.