03/09/2026
Are you watching BBC Scotland's 'A House Through Time'? You can do the same for your own house with the records here in the .
David Olusoga's sixth series is set in Edinburgh, tracing the residents of a 1770s block on Calton Hill.
Here is what you can use within our department to help you trace your house history:
📕EDINBURGH POST OFFICE DIRECTORIES, 1752 to 1974
Who lived and traded at an address, year by year.
How it’s arranged: several directories in one volume. A general directory alphabetical by surname, a street directory arranged alphabetically by street and then in order along it, and a trades directory grouped by occupation. Start at the index at the front.
If we were looking to trace the residents of the 1770s Calton Hill block discussed on the show, these directories would be an ideal point of reference. Williamson published the first Edinburgh directory in 1773, so the run begins in the same decade as the building. For an address of that age you can, in principle, follow the occupants year by year all the way to 1974.
Worth knowing: you had to pay to be listed. If the person you are looking for isn’t there, it doesn’t mean they weren’t.
Can’t get in to see us? The National Library of Scotland has digitised over 700 postal directories covering most of Scotland, 1773 to 1911, free to read at digital.nls.uk/directories.
📗 CENSUS RECORDS, 1841 to 1921
The whole household on one night: names, ages, relationships, occupations, birthplaces, and how many rooms had a window.
How it’s arranged: not alphabetically. The enumerator walked the streets, so it runs house by house. You start with looking at an index.
Here’s an Edinburgh example. If you look up the street Baxter’s Buildings for 1891, the blue street index books will give you 685-3 and 46. The first is the registration district. 685/3 is Edinburgh/Canongate, printed on the microfilm box. 46 is the enumeration district.
Load the reel from inside the box into the microfilm reader, scroll to district 46, and you find it was walked by Mr William Hunter, covering Prince Albert Buildings, Baxter’s Buildings and Rae’s Buildings.
You keep going until you find the street in the column on the left-hand side. As you can see Baxter’s Buildings had many occupants.
Outside of Edinburgh, you’ll need the parish. Check the blue Old Parish Records index folder beside the census drawers for the county, and the parish number is on the corresponding drawer.
📘 VALUATION ROLLS
Edinburgh: 1914 to 2005, East Lothian: 1899 to 2000, West Lothian: 1922 to 2001, Midlothian: 1907 to 2001. All on microfilm apart from Edinburgh where we have bound volumes.
This tells us the proprietor, tenant and occupier, listed separately, with the value of the property.
How it’s arranged: by ward, by street (geographically, not alphabetically) and then building number. Use the index for the year you are interested in to find out the ward of your street, as there can be separate volumes for separate wards. Everyone appears, whether or not they paid for a directory entry.
📙 SASINES
We have a run of Sasines Minute Books from 1914 - 1949, however, there are some gaps in between. Please ask at the enquiry desk should you have any questions about this.
The indexes for these are for the sheriffdoms of Edinburgh, Haddington, Linlithgow and Bathgate.
* Secretary’s Register of Sasines: covers 1599–1609.
* Particular Register of Sasines: covers 1617–1660, across six volumes. Once again please ask a staff member for particulars.
We also have a few Register of Sasines: Index of Persons for years 1911, 1912 and 1913.
The Sasines tells you who owned a building and when it changed hands.
How it’s arranged: chronologically by date of recording, we have indexes which will tell you the running number for a specific person or place.
Please do pop in and we would be glad to help you with all your house research. 🏠
