This Register of Interments, published by the Scottish Record Society in 1902, lists the burials that occured in Greyfriars burying-ground between 1658 and 1700. Considering that it was under the presidence of James Nisbet, the founder of Craigentinny, that the Town Council of Edinburgh, in 1612,  "resolved to go forward with the building of Old Greyfriars Church", I had hoped that there would be a high proportion of Nisbet interments. Indeed, over the 43-year period to which this book pertains, 138 Nisbets were interred at Greyfriars. My original belief that the family name was relatively uncommon, however, appears to have been well-founded, for over the same period Greyfriars accommodated somewhere in the number of 39,435 interments (this pseudo-statistic was arrived at by multiplying the number of entries per page - averaging around 55 - by the total number of pages, 717). The members of Nisbet families buried at Greyfriars, therefore, would appear to represent only 0.35 percent of the total interments for the period. An equally unscientific calculation, based on the fact that Nisbet entries form 2½ of the total 717 pages, generates the same representation. I have come to the conclusion that despite the overwhelming number of possibly pertinent records one is presented with in the pursuit of genealogy, and regardless of one's biased perception of the importance of one's own ancestors, the actual number of direct ancestors and their relative importance to the development of mankind both pale when considered in respect to the billions of individuals who have been born, have wed, and have died over the course of human history.

The number of interments that Greyfriars accomodated over 43 years is astonishing. Henry Paton, the editor of the Registry, states that "from a calculation of the twelve years before 1700 it appears that between 1100 and 1200 interments took place in the burying-ground on an average yearly. Twice the interments reach not quite 1000, but in 1690 they rise to as high a figure as 1445. The highest rate of mortality appears in the months of December 1696 and January and February 1697, when the interments number 180, 208, and 213 respectively, or together 601 for the three months." Mr. Paton also comments that "the Register is for the most part written in a wretched hand and is most illiterate, but as it was kept by the gravediggers themselves nothing else could well be expected."

The entries below identify first the Nisbets from the landed gentry - the Nisbet's of Craigentinny, of Dean ("Din", "Dine", "Dien"), of Dirleton ("Dirlentown", "Dirlton"), of Letrie, and of Nisbet, followed by the trades-people and members of their families.