What does the word ‘sederunt’ mean?
‘Sederunt’ is a Latin word, meaning ‘there sat down’, i.e. when a record of a meeting begins ‘sederunt’ followed by a list of names, it indicates that those named sat down to hold a meeting or to form a court.
‘Sederunt’ is a Latin word, meaning ‘there sat down’, i.e. when a record of a meeting begins ‘sederunt’ followed by a list of names, it indicates that those named sat down to hold a meeting or to form a court.
Along with testaments, trust sederunt books are valuable as sources of information on the property and lifestyles of middle class women, and provision for them by family trusts. A small proportion of trusts were set up by women (which are obviously useful for studying women who owned and disposed of property in their own right), while the majority of family trusts will deal with provision for widows and children of the person who set up the trust.
Bear in mind that the proportion of people who left trusts is small, and the proportion of trust sederunt books which have survived from the 19th century is even smaller. If you are fortunate to find a sederunt book surviving for an ancestor, then it will be a valuable source of information, but principally about his property and lifestyle. It is unlikely to give you information about the family which is not available from other sources.
What you are hoping for is that the sederunt book(s) for the individual, family or trust you are interested in survives among the records of a firm of solicitors (or, less likely, within family or business papers) deposited at an archives service which is open to the public. The National Records of Scotland, Glasgow City Archives and the National Library of Scotland all hold large collections of solicitors’ records. Other local authority archives and university libraries and archives also hold smaller collections.
Most archives services have cataloguing systems available online and you should start by using these systems or Your Scottish Archives to search for the name of the individual, family or trust. If you do not find anything and you have some evidence that the individual or family used a solicitor and set up a trust, contact the relevant archives service and ask for assistance. Always remember, however, that many solicitors have not deposited records with an archives service and that only a few people set up such trusts, so be prepared to be told there is nothing relevant in the collections.