Look up the relatives

Published on Saturday 23 September 2006 01:04

I have done quite a lot of research into my family history but I don't know much about the area in Scotland that they seem to be from. What would be the best way to go about finding out more about this?

R Bruce (Australia)

• An excellent way to get a feel for the area your ancestors lived in is to go and visit the village, town or region where they were from. As some places change a lot over time, you should look for old maps of the area to find out what it might have been like. To start, track down the Ordnance Survey maps, which date from 1843. Local libraries will often carry copies of those relating to their area, but if you cannot find particular Ordnance Survey maps, contact the National Library of Scotland Map Library in Edinburgh.

If you know your ancestor worked or lived on a particular estate, you should look and see if the records include plans of the estate. They will show you what it looked like at the time your ancestor was there and sometimes they will even have the names of tenants annotated on their piece of land. Many estate records can be found either in local archives or in the National Archives of Scotland. You should check the online catalogue on the Scottish Archive Network website (www.scan.org.uk) to find out where particular estate records may be held. If you are unsuccessful here, some estate records are still held privately and you can check to see if this is the case by contacting the National Register of Archives for Scotland. See their web pages for details: www.nas.gov.uk/nras/default.asp

The National Archives of Scotland has a large collection of plans which includes the largest collection of original maps and plans of Scotland. Most date from 1750 or later, as cartography in Scotland only began to flourish during the 18th century. The NAS plans series (NAS ref: RHP) may be searched on their electronic catalogue on their website: www.nas.gov.uk Catalogue descriptions include location, surveyor, engineer or architect, as well as the subject, date and origin of the plan. For topographical and architectural plans, the Place Authority search option allows searches to be restricted to the civil parish whose boundaries will often differ from those of the city, town or settlement of the same name. Scottish plans are located by civil parish and county, according to the boundaries in existence immediately before the reorganisation of local government in 1975. This means that cities and towns may fall within the boundaries of a number of civil parishes, all of which will require to be searched independently, so if you are unsuccessful with one parish it is worthwhile persevering with those round about.