Into the Archives: Valuation rolls throw a fascinating spotlight on Ross-shire's past
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Today we are focusing on Valuation Rolls, which are our most widely used record series, and looking at how they can be used for family and local history research. Valuation Rolls record the rateable value of inhabited properties along with the names of their proprietors, tenants and occupiers and, often, those people’s occupations.
Essentially, the location of properties, their value, who owned them and who lived in them. Valuation Rolls are divided into
counties and burghs (later districts) and then organised by civil parish or ward, making it easy to find a particular house if you know where it is/was.
As they were published annually between c1855-1975 (and then less frequently from 1976-1989) Valuation Rolls can be useful to fill in the gaps between census years. Although they do not list everyone resident in a property, only the head of the household, they are a great source of information for tracking a family who moved about.
In addition to their obvious use in family history research, Valuation Rolls can also be used for a variety of research areas, such as to establish when a building was built, demolished or altered, to find out the previous owners/tenants of a house or to learn what a building used to be.
They can give fascinating insights into the life of a community or an area. For example, some of the Valuation Rolls for Avoch parish contain so many people with the same surname that they are all given tee names to distinguish them from each other. The social layers of a community can be seen through Valuation Rolls – how many people owned properties and how many were renting, for instance.
The Ross and Cromarty Valuation Roll for the Parish of Applecross in 1896, shows that large sections of the parish (and therefore the properties as well) were owned by Charles James Murray, who had purchased the Lochcarron Estate in 1882. However, in more populated areas, such as the Burgh of Dingwall there are can be multiple proprietors in most streets.
The rateable values of properties in Valuation Rolls can also show the relative wealth or
poverty of an area.
We are lucky in Scotland to have Valuation Rolls as they were not produced throughout the rest of Britain. At the Highland Archive Centre we hold a comprehensive set for the counties of Sutherland, Inverness-Shire, Ross & Cromarty, Moray and Nairnshire with most coverage beginning c1870.
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Family History for Beginners: Our popular Family History for Beginners classes will be returning in May. This set of four classes covers statutory, census and church records, memorial inscriptions, wills and testaments and archive records.
Two sets of classes will run; one on Wednesday evenings and one on Friday mornings. The cost of the set of four classes is £40 (£32 concession) and they will be delivered online via Zoom.
For more information or to register interest please email genealogy@highlifehighland.com
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