Hello, This could be a useful site for getting an overview of distribution of parishes within shires and counties. There is a page showing the map of the parishes inside each county http://www.scotlandsfamily.com/parish-map-aberdeen.htm - shows aberdeenshire and Banffshire parishes Disclaimers ................................ - Please note 1. I do not know the difference between a shire and a county - if somebody does please educate me (Thankyou) 2. Parish boundaries can change over time 3. County and no doubt shire boundaries can change over time (Banffshire dissappeared completely !) 4. I do not know how or when the shapes depicted in these maps were calculated and drawn or what map projections were used to create the graphics. It may be stated somewhere on the site. I have not noticed. 5. Given point 4 above it would be difficult to recommend this site to anybody who wants rigorous definitions of source data 6. Other people know far far more about parishes than I do and all comments and contributions are most welcome. In spite of the above disclaimers, I still believe that anybody who would like to look at the above maps would gain some understanding of the approximate location and size of any parishes that they are interested in. Does anybody know of any similar or better sites for understanding parish locations and shapes ? Although Genuki has lots of useful information, I find the Genuki site to be awkward to use and I have not seen many definitions of Parish boundaries on Genuki as clearly and as simply displayed as on the Scotlandfamily parish maps. Another site I have seen is called Vision of Britain which also contains maps of Parish boundaries that some of you may find useful. A GIS database defining all English parish polygons between 1500ish and 2000ish does exist in academia - Does anybody know of a similar database for Scottish parish boundaries ? Regards Bill