Highland Archive Service preserves precious records that help tell our story
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Welcome to a new series of articles looking at the Highland Archive Service and the fascinating collections it looks after!
The Highland Archive Service is run on a hub and spokes model with the Highland Archive Centre, in Inverness, holding historic records of Inverness-shire, Sutherland, Ross & Cromarty and Nairnshire. The spoke offices, in Fort William, Portree and Wick, hold archives for their respective areas.
Archives are records of any age (hundreds of years old to one day old), in any format (parchment, paper, photograph, DVD…) which are deemed worthy of permanent preservation. They are unique and irreplaceable. The archives we hold are hugely varied but have one thing in common – they contribute to the story of the Highlands and its people.
Researchers come from across the world (and across the Highlands) to look at the records and use them for academic research, family history, and other purposes. Some look at the documents for creative inspiration, some to learn about the history of their area, others purely
out of interest.
The Highland Archive Centre has hundreds of thousands of archives, kept securely on six miles of shelving in environmentally-controlled storage, with public access possible through an archive Searchroom. Among these are records of the Highland Council and its predecessors. These fascinating local government collections include school admission registers and log books, valuation rolls (listing the proprietor and tenant of properties in the Highlands) and poor relief records for numerous Highland parishes.
In addition to local government records we are privileged to be the chosen archive for many deposited collections (items deposited with us by organisations or individuals to ensure their safekeeping for future generations). These include the historic records of the Northern
Constabulary and the Highland Health Board. We also hold the incredible archives of many Highland churches under Charge and Superintendence from the National Records of Scotland.
Among our deposited collections are family papers, estate records, business minutes and accounts, club and society records, scrapbooks and over 10,000 maps. Family collections include letters, diaries and photographs, with some collections dating from the 1570s onwards. These document the lives of Highlanders across the years and across the social spectrum.
The Highland Archive Centre is currently closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic but when we reopen we will be able to welcome customers back into the building on an appointment basis, bookable in advance. In the meantime we are continuing to post regularly on our Facebook and Twitter pages. You can join us each Thursday morning at 11am on Facebook for ‘Learn with Lorna’, a weekly delve into the archives held across the Service. We are also running classes in family history and archives online and can still answer your questions via email.
We recently announced the launch of the Highland Archive Service online catalogue.
The catalogue contains nearly 100,000 descriptions of archives and local studies holdings held in our four Archive Centres and will be continually added to.
For information on the catalogue contents and searches, see the top right hand menu on the site.
We hope you will enjoy these articles! Please follow us on social media and keep an eye on our website for further updates on events and information about reopening.
Email: archives@highlifehighland.com
Web: https://www.highlifehighland.com/highland-archive-centre/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/highlandarchives
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hlharchives
Related: From the files of the Ross-shire Journal 100, 50 and 25 years ago
