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Locating a person in Dundee/Angus

Sometimes you may have difficulty in locating an ancestor using the Census. They may not be at the address you had expected, perhaps because that address referred to an inter-censual year. However, there are others sources of information available, which can further your research or simply corroborate what you have already discovered. See Local Sources for information on where to find these resources in Dundee/Angus.

Directories

Directories come in many forms: street, trade, occupational. The Dundee Directory, for example, which can be viewed in the Local Studies Department of Dundee Central Library, was published annually. It covers the period from 1783 until 1974, with some missing volumes mainly in the earlier years. Each volume is arranged alphabetically, as well as by street and occupation and contains a vast amount of information on the town and its inhabitants. Entries in the earlier books tend to be confined to the more prominent and wealthy members of society, but those from the later 19th century onwards contain information on a much wider range of people.

From a practical point of view, directories can be useful in tracing the movements of an ancestor. You may find an address to look up in the census, or the sudden absence of someone previously documented might indicate that the person has died or left the area. However, they also give a flavour of what life was like for inhabitants of the area, through the abundant and fully documented advertising and they include for example, comprehensive listings of town office bearers, memberships of various societies, details on shipping, banking, commercial information and sometimes a map of the area.

Registers of Voters

Addresses found in the Directories can be pursued in the Registers of Voters. Extensions of the franchise throughout the 19th century meant that by 1884 virtually all adult males over the age of 21 could vote. By 1918, women over 30 were enfranchised as were women over 21 by 1928.

The Registers of Voters are arranged by constituency, ward and polling district, then alphabetically by surname. As with the Directories, they can be useful in tracking an ancestor's movements, and, because they are arranged alphabetically, providing an address for searching the Census. They will of course only show those in the household eligible to vote at that time.

Newspapers

Libraries in Dundee/Angus generally hold the newspapers for their own area and some of these may be on microfilm. Besides giving an invaluable insight into life at the time, and the issues of the day, they may also contain obituary or funeral notices. In earlier years these would be confined to the more prominent citizens of the area.

Visitors wishing to view local newspapers at Dundee Central Library's Local Studies Department should contact the Library in advance of their visit if possible. A large part of the collection is now on microfilm, but some years are not and they may require 24 hours notice for retrieval.

For information on newspaper holdings, look at the British Library website on www.bl.uk/collections/newspapers.html

Valuation Rolls

A statute of 1854 required that all land in Scotland be valued annually. The resultant valuation rolls listed the value of each property, the name of the owner, the name of any tenant, and, if the value of the property was more than £4 per annum, the name of the occupier. There are no name indexes for these, but in rural areas, if the name of e.g. a farm is known, it is possible to trace changes of occupancy and ownership. The Local Studies Department of Dundee Central Library holds the Valuation Rolls for Dundee, and also those for rural Forfarshire.

Maps and Photographs

Maps and photographs can be used together with the addresses that you find in the Directories, Voters Rolls or the Valuation Rolls or indeed the Census itself, to pinpoint where an ancestor lived or worked. See Bygone Dundee for information about the photographic collections held by Dundee Central Library. Individual libraries have their own local collections.

The Ordnance Survey mapped the whole of Scotland and these maps and town plans (at a scale of 6 inches to the mile and 25 inches to the mile) are held at the Scottish Record Office, with copies available at many regional libraries and record offices. They are extremely useful, with the larger scale showing particular properties and field-names quite clearly.