Scotland Directories

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Directories are alphabetical lists of names and addresses. They list information for the year they are published. In Scotland, directories first appeared in the mid-eighteenth century and continue to the present day.

Online Databases

• Scottish Post Office Directories, index. pdf's
• Fife, Scotland, The Dunfermline Register, 1829 - 1859 ($)
• FamilyRelatives.com, trade directories.
• 1825-1903: These are available in either PDF or viewable online. (Some years are missing)
• 1877: These are available in either PDF format or viewable online. This includes:
  • Forfar
    
  • Fife
    
  • Kinross
    
  • Aberdeen
    
  • Banff
    
  • Kincardine
    
• 1883-84, 1886-87: West Coast Directory for Scotland

Directories usually show;

• Name of a person
  
• Address
  
• Occupation
• They seldom show the entire population, usually including only prominent members of the community such as
  
• Gentry
  
• Clergy
  
• Merchants
  
• Craftsmen
  

People such as coal miners and crofters do not appear in directories.

Directories may cover all of Scotland, a region of Scotland, or a specific city such as Glasgow. There are also directories for specific segments of Scottish society such as burgesses, gentry, or Scottish advocates (lawyers).

A partial bibliography of directories is found in an appendix to:

Hamilton-Edwards, Gerald. In Search of Scottish Ancestry. 2nd ed. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984. (Family History Library book Ref. 941 D27ham 1984.)

Telephone directories can help you identify all of the people in a place who have the same surname. This information can be very useful for identifying modern descendants of a family. The Family History Library has phone directories for Scotland on microfiche. The directories, however, cannot be circulated to family history centers.

• The Family History Library has a small collection of Scottish directories. The catalog lists directories in the Place Search under:

GREAT BRITAIN - DIRECTORIES

SCOTLAND - DIRECTORIES

SCOTLAND, [COUNTY] - DIRECTORIES

SCOTLAND, [COUNTY], [CITY] - DIRECTORIES

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