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FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY CLASS HANDOUT
Scotland: Records of Property & Inheritance
Property records are often neglected supposing that “my ancestor was too poor.” We should never put
limits on our ancestors. While property records contain more for the upper to middle classes, some
include the lower class.
The records dealing with property include services of heirs, deeds, sasines, notarial protocol books, the
Great Seal, estate records, and valuation rolls. FamilySearch Wiki at http://wiki.familysearch.org and
the National Archives of Scotland at http://www.nas.gov.uk can provide valuable information on all of
these records.
JURISDICTIONS: PROPERTY
Many courts were involved in actions regarding land. Some of the most important courts were:
Chancery Court, Court of Session, Sheriff Courts, Burgh Courts, Commissary Courts and Regality
Courts.
RETOURS AND SERVICES OF HEIRS
Heritable (real) or immovable property included land, buildings and mineral rights. “Expanded on p.
4-5”
DEEDS
Any document someone wanted to be legally binding could be registered in a Register of Deeds.
Deeds contain marriage settlements, marriage contracts, partnerships, trust dispositions, transfers of
property, etc.
SASINES
The term ‘sasine’ comes from the action ‘to seize.’ A ‘sasine’ documented the act of taking possession
of a piece of land, building or minerals in the ground, and sometimes involved the seller literally taking
a handful of soil from the land and placing it in the hand of the buyer. Sasines were for any transfer of
land and immovable property, including heritable land and Crown grants of land. These acts were
recorded in the Register of Sasines and are a primary source for information on ownership of land and
property. The register began in 1617 and continues to today, but earlier sasines do survive.
There are actually several divisions of the Register of Sasines:
• A general register (centralized in Edinburgh—containing sasines for anywhere in the country)
• Particular registers (for each county)
• Burgh registers
The Register of Sasines is indexed from 1781 and easy to use. Prior to that year, there are partial
indexes. The registers are currently being digitized. Here is a list of records available at the National
Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh (NAS) and the Family History Library (FHL).