National Archives of Scotland

Our final stop in Scotland was the National Archives. Margaret McBride, the Director of Education spoke to us a little about the history of the archives and what they do. Their mission is to preserve, protect, and promote the nation’s records. They are headed by the Keeper of the Records of Scotland. The archives are housed in three buildings with 140 staff, and they manage eight websites, all of which can be accessed from the main website here. The main building, which we were in, is the General Register House. The National Archives are divided into two divisions, record services and corporate services. They house over seventy kilometers of records from the twelfth to the twenty-first century. The online catalogue contains over three million entries.

In 1774 Lord Frederick Campbell laid the foundation stone for the General Register House. Robert Adam designed the building. It was opened in 1789, but not completed until the 1820s. The West Register House contains the West Search room with modern records. It was converted from St. George’s Church and opened in 1971. The Thomas Thomson House holds the conservation department, and was opened in 1994.

Some of the developments currently in progress are availability of access to Scottish wills from 1500 to 1901, the digitization of the Church of Scotland records, the Register’s Archive conversion project, the valuation rolls project, and the Scotland People’s Centre. The National Register of Archives for Scotland is where items that are still with private owners can be found. There is an online catalogue of these items. Most of the inquiries received are through e-mail, and the majority of these are family history questions. When people come for research they must register for a reader’s ticket and be able to present two forms of identification. This is similar to what we have seen in similar facilities.

After our tour of the building we were able to browse through some documents and have hands on experience trying to decipher them. Some were very easy to read, such as a log of crewmembers and their wages, and some were difficult, such as a list of patients and their ailments. I loved holding the documents and trying to read them! In some cases it felt like trying to solve a puzzle. I enjoyed our last stop in Scotland.