Explore the Site
Welcome to Your Scottish Archives
Your Scottish Archives provides an online database with information about archive holders and archival collections across Scotland.
This site includes catalogue descriptions for archives held by
- Local authorities
- Universities and Higher Education Colleges
- Businesses
- Museums
- Galleries
- Heritage organisations
- Community heritage groups
- Historic organisations
See the current contributors list for archives who are taking part currently.
Your Scottish Archives also offers information, help and guidance on Scotland’s archives. Whatever your reason for exploring archives, we hope you find lots here to help you. Resources on Your Scottish Archives include:
- How to Search: guidance on how to use the archive catalogue search on Your Scottish Archives
- Contribute: tips for archive holders would like to add information about their collection
- Knowledge Base: a mini encyclopedia of articles on the records, record-makers and topic you will find when using archives
- Glossary: to help you unpick historic terminology, terms used by archive services, and terms in catalogues
- Discover Archives: information on family history, finding your own records, private collections, resources on reading and understanding archives
Get in touch
If you have comments, questions, or would like any further information please contact us at:
Email: your@scottisharchives.org.uk
Scottish Council on Archives
Room 18, HM General Register House
2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY
What’s on this site?
Your Scottish Archives includes:
- catalogues or lists of archival materials held in Scotland
- information about some of the archival collections held by Local Authorities, Universities, Museums, Galleries, Businesses, Historic Organisations, Community Archives, Local Heritage Groups
- links to some archival items which have been digitised by archive holder
- information on how to find and use archives in Scotland
What’s not on Your Scottish Archives?
- Your Scottish Archives does not hold physical archival material
- Not all archives in Scotland have added their collections to the portal
- Current contributors have not added all their catalogues: they are still working to add more of their collections.
- Catalogues are mostly descriptions of what can be found in a collection: only a small number of physical archival items have been digitised and an image put online
- Some business and family collection are held privately. See our Discover pages to find out about these collections
Scottish Council on Archives
The Your Scottish Archives portal is run by the Scottish Council on Archives (SCA).
The SCA is an independent support and advocacy organisation for the archives and recordkeeping sector in Scotland. You can find out more about our work and our team on the SCA website.
We are working in partnership with Archives Hub, part of Jisc, to provide the infrastructure for the Your Scottish Archives portal.
Your Scottish Archives, the Scottish Council on Archives and Archives Hub do not look after any archival collections themselves.
The Scottish Council on Archives is supported by National Records of Scotland.
Want to get in touch?
If you have comments, questions, or would like any further information please contact us at:
Email: your@scottisharchives.org.uk
Scottish Council on Archives
Room 18, HM General Register House
2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY
Coming soon
Your Scottish Archives is working with over 100 repositories across Scotland, from Mull to Aberdeen, to add their collections. Please see our list of current contributors to see which archives currently contribute to Your Scottish Archives.
Our featured collections and news blog provide inspiring glimpses of the fascinating archives which have been recently added to Your Scottish Archives.
For further details on what’s coming next for Your Scottish Archives, see our page on future plans.
Any comments or questions about Your Scottish Archives? We’d love to hear them! The site is brand new and further developments are planned next year.
Get in touch: your@scottisharchives.org.uk
Partners
Your Scottish Archives is run by the Scottish Council on Archives, working together with Archives Hub, a Jisc organisation.
SCA is grateful for the ongoing support from National Records of Scotland towards running costs and for supporting the Your Scottish Archives portal.
Our interface for the application was designed by Gooii.
To find out more, see Our Partners.
See our FAQs page for some commonly asked questions about Your Scottish Archives.
If your question is not covered by this information, please email your@scottisharchives.org.uk
Using historic records can raise many questions about their context, content and language.
This guide brings together some questions researchers have posed to archivists previously. The questions and answers are grouped by area or topic of record creation. As archival records are so diverse and varied, this is just a selection of topics and by no means intended to cover every area.
If you have a question about a particular catalogue description or archival item, it is worth contacting the archivist at the archive service which looks after that item or collection.
If there is a topic or archival record type you would like to see in our guide, please get in touch.
Our records and topics research guide includes queries and answers on the following areas:
- Census records
- Day and dates
- Death and dying
- Emigration
- Friendly Society records
- Heraldry
- Kirk records (Church records)
- Lighthouses
- Liquor
- Minute books
- Money
- Passengers
- Passports
- Parliamentary papers
- Poor law and poor relief
- Police and policing
- Postal records
- Prisons
- Property records
- Schools, school administration and education records
- Scottish local government
- Trust sederunt records
- Valuation rolls
- Vehicle registration
- Wills and testaments