Kirk Sessions oversee the local congregation and its parish, and consist of elders presided over by a minister.  The Kirk Session minutes record the discussions and decisions of the elders and often contain details of key events in communities.  

Taken over decades and centuries, Kirk Session records from across Scotland form an important repository of information, offering remarkable insights into the everday lives of ordinary Scots, as well as accounts of exceptional historical events, such as wars, witchcraft trials, and epidemics.  The records of kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly together make up a major part of Scotland's written history, and they are used by a wide range of academic, professional and amateur researchers, especially genealogists and ecclesiastical historians.   

For more information about the historical records of kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly, visit the Scottish Documents website, the ScotlandsPeople website or the Church Records section on the NRS website.

The National Records of Scotland record the information on this website (which includes intimations, news, Newsletters and Kirk Session Minutes) several times a year enabling future generations to track specific events as well as long-term societal changes.