Crown Office Opinions - Search Result

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These records can help you trace your family tree and understand the lives of your ancestors. Order copies of the full record for a research fee of £15.00.

When a crime has taken place it is often referred to the Crown Office for an opinion. In some cases, it went on to the High Court or the Sheriff Court. After some investigation, however, some cases did not proceed to trial and ‘no proceedings’ were taken. As there are today, there were a variety of reasons for this. For example, in some cases there was a lack of evidence, but in other cases the person was not medically fit to stand trial. The good news is that between 1825 and 1833 the paperwork in the cases where there were no further proceedings generally survives and can be fascinating, as the video below shows. This video is from our September 2023 conference when the records were released. Of course, all records of this age vary. In some cases there are detailed records but on other occasions it is very basic. Until we make the search it is impossible to know what we will find.

We can search for the record above in the Crown Office Opinions for the research fee of £15. As we search for this case we will also note all other cases. In time our database will become more comprehensive as we investigate these records.

The information listed above is an index entry only. The full original record contains more details, including the crime the person was accused of. You can order images of the full entry for a search fee of £15.00. By clicking 'Add to Cart', you will place an order for this item in your PayPal 'Shopping Cart'; our PayPal account is in the name of 'Graham Maxwell'. There is a link to the Shopping Cart at the foot of each page on the site so that you can review or amend your order at any time.

As this involves a trip to the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh it can take a few weeks to process your order. We usually try to complete all orders within 4 weeks.

From time to time the National Records of Scotland withdraws access to original documents. For example, sometimes the documents are too fragile to be handled. If for any reason this record cannot be produced for us we will provide a full refund and an explanation of why we can’t access the original record.

Top Tips

On this website, you can also search other criminal records such as High Court records, Sheriff Court records and Prison records. Try searching Scotland's Criminal Database to find out more.

Not sure if this is your ancestor? Now that you have the jurisdiction, name and year from our index you could search historical newspapers which could give you the extra information you need to work out if this is your ancestor.