ScotlandsPeople working on Digitising the 1895 Scottish Valuation Rolls

ScotlandsPeople's newsletter today announced that they're currently working on digitising the 1895 Scottish Valuation Rolls and they will be launched soon on their website.

These Valuation Rolls could help you to corroborate information about people in the 1891 census. The 1905 Valuation Rolls and the 1915 Valuation Rolls are already available.

They're looking for people whose ancestors appear in the 1891 Census, but have disappeared from that address in the 1901 Census so that they can cite them as interesting examples when they launch the 1895 Valuation Rolls.

They'll try and find those ancestors for you, by searching the 1895 Valuation Rolls.

So if you think that the 1895 Valuation Rolls might well contain a missing ancestor of yours, then please drop them a brief email at press AT scotlandspeople.gov.uk.

Come and see ScotlandsPeople at our History Fair on 11th May 2013 in Galashiels, Scotland.

3 reasons to use Scottish Valuation Rolls

Until 1855, works carried out for the benefit of the public, for example, repair of the roads, removal of refuse and soil heaps, care for the sick and relief for the unemployed poor were carried out sporadically.

Initially these works were funded by the landowners, by the Crown, and public benefactors; as towns and cities grew in the 19th century, increasingly by levying a tax on householders.

However, with no standard system for determining the rate of the tax, its frequency, or penalties for non-payment; collection was often erratic, people refused to pay, could not be found to pay, could not afford to pay; in most years, the authorities had to scale down the works or relief offered to match the sums collected.

The most used valuation rolls are lists of properties, their owners, and occupiers produced for the purposes of taxation between 1855 and 1989 by assessors in council areas.

The Lands Valuation (Scotland) Act 1854 established a system of Assessors’ offices in each county and royal burgh in Scotland. Until the abolition of counties and burghs in 1975, these Assessors produced annual valuation rolls, listing properties whose actual or theoretical annual rental value was above a statutory minimum.         

Why use Valuation Rolls in your research ?
Well, mainly for 3 reasons:

1. to put some flesh on the bones of your family history
2. to help with finding people in the censuses
3. to check information in the census

The rolls include the address of the property, its description (cottage, dwelling house, shop, workshop, etc), the owner's name, the name of the tenant, and, in most cases, the name of the occupier, the annual rental value.

Scotland's People have announced the availability of Valuation Rolls for 1905. This adds to their collection for 1915.

The 1895 valuation rolls are expected to be released later in the year.

Alternatively, come to our conference on 11 May at Galashiels and search the rolls there on Scotland's People's stand.

1911 England & Wales Census Search - Free till 18th November

I've just discovered that it's also free to search the 1911 England & Wales Census through Genes Reunited.

1911 England & Wales Census Search - Free till 18th November

I just remembered to use Find My Past's free England & Wales Census Search today.

I haven't made much progress, except in finding details about Marchantons that I hadn't known before.

In the census entry for Mary Marchanton (born 1853),  wife of James, for 'Condition /Yrs married', it says Am.

I'm wondering what the "Am" could mean.

Any ideas, please ?

Family History Workshop at The Heritage Hub, Hawick

Are you watching “Who Do You think You Are ?” on TV ? Are you interested in tracing your family history . . . but don't know where to start? Then go along to a Family History Workshop at the Heritage Hub, Hawick on Tuesday 25 October from 7pm-9pm.

They will show you how the resources at the Heritage Hub can help you in your search. As well as the standard census returns, old parish records, and monumental inscriptions, you will have the opportunity to view a range of records including, business records, council records, family papers, militia lists, school, police and poor law records.

The setting is friendly and informal and you will go away with hints, tips and handouts.

Rachel Hosker, Archive Manager says “Family history is much more than being a collection of names and dates. We hold fascinating and unique evidence covering the whole of the Scottish Borders to help people gain a picture on how their ancestors lived and worked and so build up the story of their own family.”

Places are limited - so do please book early to avoid disappointment – the charge of £5 will include handouts and a family history chart. For more information, telephone 01450 360699.

7 Tips on the 1911 Scottish Census as used on Scotland's People, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

1. The census was held on 2nd April 1911.

2. You cannot scroll through an entire district, only the enumeration district, or institution you have gone into, whereas in previous censuses you could go through an entire district by going forwards or backwards and paying the appropriate number of credits. With this census you would have to find an entry in each enumeration district and then go forwards or backwards.
An example would be Nairn Parish, which has 13 enumeration districts or Cawdor Parish, which has 6. This is relevant to those persons doing local history projects or for doing the history of a street where the street might fall within 2 enumeration districts.
The Free Headers will give you a description of the enumeration district and can be found on page 2 of the header.

3. In the relationship to head of household column, I have noticed that, for the first time compared to previous censuses, there are many references to adopted children with adopted or adpt or a similar code shown; this, of course, is prior to the official adoption act of the 1920s but appears to be a response to the fertility columns.
It did lead me to have to drop one line from my family tree as the 1901 census showed 'son' but the 1911 census clearly stated 'adopted'.
There is much greater use of the word step-son or step-daughter.


4. In many cases the enumerator has entered the appropriate code number in the Single / Married / or Widow column thus obscuring the information written underneath. The codes can be converted as shown below:
1 is a Single Male
2 is a Married Male
3 is a Widower
4 is a Single Female
5 is a Married Female
6 is a Widow

5. The particulars to marriage column have to be read very carefully; they relate only to the wife of the marriage and will only be found if the wife is present. If the wife is not present, for example, she is away on holiday, but the husband and children are present then the information will not be shown.
I found a couple of examples where the enumerator had entered the details for a widow but then put a stroke through the information.      
It relates only to the marriage of the couple living in the household, not their previous marriages or any illegitimate children that either individual may have had.

An example is:
Alexander Cameron Head 31 
Alice Cameron         Wife 33           5   2   2
Minnie Cameron     Daur 12
Jane Cameron         Daur  4
James Cameron      Son   1

In this case, Alexander and Alice have been married for 5 years and have had 2 children born alive and still living from that marriage, Jane and James. Minnie is presumably a daughter of a previous marriage of Alexander Cameron, but this cannot be assumed as there are cases in my own tree where the children from a previous marriage of the wife have taken the surname of their step-father and are not shown as step-children although in the 1911 census the use of Step-Son or Step-Daughter seems to be common practice.

Another example:
Duncan Ferguson Head 47
Flora Ferguson     Wife 43     20  8  5
Finlay Ferguson   Son  13
Annie Ferguson   Daur  7
Duncan and Flora have been married for 20 years and had 8 children born alive; they have 5 children still living of whom two are still living in the same household as their parents. As there is a gap age-wise between Finlay and Annie, I might look for at least one of the deceased children in that period. It also shows that there are three children presumably older than Finlay who have moved away.

Another example:
James  McKenzie  Head  65
Janet  McKenzie  Wife 55    30     7    5
Janet McIntosh   Daur   25    6       3     2
Alexr  McIntosh Grandson     4
Janet McIntosh Granddaur    2 mth
James and Janet have been married for 30 years had 7 children born alive of whom 5 are still living. One of these 5 children, Janet is living in the same household as her parents. Janet has been married for 6 years and had 3 children of whom 2 are still living, Alexr and Janet.

Another example:
Andrew Adams  Head 55
Jessie   Adams Wife   44   14  6  6
George Adams Son    29
Andrew Adams Son   22
Hugh Adams    Son   20
Alexander Adams Son 19
James Adams Son  3
Archibald Mitchell Step son 22
Maggie Adams Daur 25
Kate Adams Daughter 13
Williamina Adams Daughter 12
Sarah Adams Daughter 8
Jessie Adams Daughter 7
Agnes Adams Daughter 5

Andrew and Jessie have been married for 14 years have had 6 children born alive all of whom are still living, that is, James, Kate, Williamina, Sarah, Jessie, Agnes.
George, Andrew, Hugh, Alexander and Maggie are children of a previous marriage of Andrew senior; Archibald Mitchell is a son from a previous relationship of Jessie Adams.

6. The Industry or Service column can be very useful in that it expands on the information in the employment column.
With those working in shops, it states the type of shop and for railway employees it quite often states the name of the railway company.
For clerks and typists it states the type of office they work in.
For example, Thomas Taylor, age 26, a Railway Surfaceman is working for the N.B. Railway which is the North British Railway Company whose staff records can be found at National Records of Scotland (formerly National Archives of Scotland).

7. The birthplace column usually states the county and place name for those born in Scotland and for those born in England, Ireland, Wales it usually just gives the country name.
The enumerator seems to have acted differently in Aberlour Parish, Banffshire in that he put Devon, Devonport as place of birth for my 2 X Great-Grandmother and that is correct.
With those born overseas in India, for example, the name of the state seems to be often given.

This is a guest blog written by Kenneth Nisbet.

Census 2011

I’ve completed our census form on line this morning which was both quick and simple. This set me musing about the reaction of my great-grand-children when they get to see it in 100 years time and how it compared with the ones we’re used to from the 19^th and early 20^th century. Having completed it on-line my descendants will not get a chance to see just how bad my writing is which is possible with the English census for 1911 where the household schedules survived. There will however be no need to transcribe those schedules completed electronically before they can be indexed which should make for fewer mistakes.

Regrettably there’ll be no information about place of birth beyond the fact that I was born in Scotland and there are no middle names but they will get date of birth not just an age, it was chastening to see that the public exams that I (and thousands of others of my and my daughter's generation) took as a 15 year old in England - GCE O-Level (General Certificate of Education, Ordinary Level and the qualification that A-Levels are more advanced than) was merely “any other similar qualification”.

The question (in Scotland) about language where the choices were English, Scots and Gaelic did have me wondering about the point at which a dialect becomes a separate language. If Scots why not Yorkshire?

The first comments about returning the completed form by post appeared in the papers at least a fortnight ago. It looks as though another trap for our unwary descendants will be the people who were born or died between the actual census date and the return of the forms.

I must have completed 4 census returns since I left home but the only one I remember at all is 1971 when I was an Enumerator. We got £50 of which £20 (I think) was classified as expenses and thus not taxed. Not a fortune even thenbut welcome as I was not long married, our daughter had just been born and we were about to buy our first house.

Scotland's Earliest Census (before the English Domesday Book)

We're all accustomed to regarding the census for Scotland starting in 1841, and whilst it's true that this is the first detailed census useful for most people's family history, there were censuses before that, for example, various parishes in 1835, for Jedburgh in 1821, for Hutton in 1811 and Stow in 1801, and Portpatrick in 1763.

I was astonished to see a BBC article about Scotland's first census  occurring in the 7th century. It's called Senchus fer nAlban (History of the men of Scotland) and it's Scotland's earliest census. It is a list of the population of Dál Riata, the kingdom of the Gaels on the west coast of Scotland, in Lorn and the islands of Islay and Jura.

I assume that it's written in classical Irish, the forerunner of modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic. There's much more in the BBC article including a picture, and a video in Scottish Gaelic which has some English subtitles, for example "Eogan Garbh has 30 houses, his wife is Crodu, daughter of Dallan, son of Eogan, son of Niall".

Updated Name Search at Public Record Office of Northern Ireland

On 11th March a major new update to the Name Search facility was launched on the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) website. Eight further pre-1858 will indexes have been added, containing around 53,000 new entries and the index to coroners’ inquests has been extended by ten years to 1920.

These entries are in addition to the pre-1858 administration bond indexes, fragments of the 1740 and 1766 religious census returns and 1775 dissenters petitions already available on Name Search. The application now provides a searchable index to thousands of records as early as 1608. The new indexes cover the dioceses of Armagh, Clogher, Connor, Down and Kilmore. Given the loss of census records for Ireland prior to 1901, these records will be of great interest to genealogists tracing their family tree as far back as the 17th century.

Although most pre-1858 wills do not survive, the indexes provide information of use to genealogists, such as the names of the deceased, their address, the date of the grant of probate or administration and occasionally their occupation.

The site can be accessed via PRONI’s main website at www.proni.gov.uk.

New Map Comparison Tool from the Visualising Urban Geography Project

There's a new tool from the Visualising Urban Geography project that allows you to compare two different maps of Edinburgh side by side on the screen.

We've always had the capability to do this manually using two paper maps but it's very laborious and not very easy to compare like with like.

This new tool uses geo-referenced maps which are overlaid on top of the current street map, and you can decide which maps to compare.

For family historians, this has several great benefits; you can see, at a glance:

• how streets have developed since the previous map
• where new buildings are
• where streets have disappeared
• which streets have been renamed

and that will make it easier than ever to look at census records, view the route taken by the census enumerator, and go directly to the site of an ancestor's dwelling, and if you're lucky the actual dwelling itself.

Also, I think it will be helpful when looking at valuation rolls to see what a street looked like before or after.

The picture shows an area of Spring Gardens, Edinburgh. Notice how a bit of land to the right of St Ann's Bank House in the top map (1849) has become a row of buildings, Violet Bank, in the bottom map (1876).

Have a go at using the dual map tool, yourself, and let me know what you think.

If you want to change map when you're in the tool, click the [clear overlay] link to remove the map, then click the new map you want.

Of course, the great drawback for us is that it allows only the comparison of Edinburgh maps, however, as it has been done for Edinburgh, it presumably can be done for other places, too; and that's another great reason to get on with the geo-referencing of historical maps.