Page last updated on: Monday, 16 December, 2019.
From 1854 rates were payable by owners of land and property based on the "rateable value" of their assets, which in turn was based on the amount of annual rent that the assets were capable of earning.
Valuation Rolls were produced for each county to determine the income from rates that should be achieved for each year starting at Whitsunday.
For each property or piece of ground, the proprietor, tenant and rateable value was recorded.
The Ewart Library in Dumfries has bound copies of Valuation Rolls for Kirkcudbrighshire for every third year or so. They are publicly viewable and small extracts can be photocopied. The Scotland's People website is also making Valuation Rolls for the whole of Scotland available for on-line research. A small download charge is payable for this. As of December 2019 the following years are available : 1855, 1865, 1875, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1930, 1935 & 1940..
Valuation Rolls can be very useful for genealogists and local historians because they list both proprietor and tenant together for each building. However, the roll for 1859-60 seems to list property in a random order and does not even quote street names - which makes life a lot more difficult.
Valuation Roll information can be combined with census returns, and, if available, property deeds. These sources, when used together, can provide enough information to produce a plan of who lived in what property, when, and who owned it.
It takes time to transcribe valuation rolls and we will add new ones when we have time.
As more valuation rolls, censuses and property deeds become available, we should be able to add more house numbers to each years' valuation roll. So if you are interested in a particular family or property, come back to the website in a few weeks to see if we have modified such details.
Click on a link below to see each local transcription that we have completed. Remember to use your browser's Back button to get back to this page.