S2.5.5 Indexes

The persons and places indexes are the key to finding information on the Search Sheet. The vast majority of property in Scotland has a Second Series Search Sheet, and there are three sets of indexes that you will use to access these:

• All three have separate indexes for Persons and Places.

• The Pre and Post ’59 indexes have both been Imaged.

The Computerised index makes an entry for each person and each property in every recorded Minute, whether a Disposition, a Standard Security, or other deed type. A search in the computerised index is quite likely to reveal more than one index entry for a specific name or address.

Index entries in the Pre/Post ’59 indexes were not made each time a deed was recorded. In the persons index an entry was only made when a person bought a property.

In the places index an entry was made only the first time a property was registered. This means that the pre ’59 places index often has to be used when searching for a property by address.

A property search by address will initially search the computerised records. If there have been no transactions affecting that property since 1993 there will be no entries in the computerised index.

You can then search the imaged indexes. If the property that you are searching for was first registered before 1959 there will be an entry in the pre ’59 places index. Remember, an entry was not made each time a property was sold, only when it was first registered. 

Therefore even if the property was sold on between 1959 and 1993, there may not be an entry in the post ’59 places index. An index entry will have been in the post ’59 places index for any property first registered between 1959 and 1996.

 INDEXES – POINTS TO NOTE

• You cannot tell by looking at an index who the current proprietor of a property is. The index will only tell you that someone owned the property at some point. You have to look at the Search Sheet to get more information.

COMPUTERISED INDEXES

• The Computerised index makes an entry for every indexable item (name or property address) in every Minute recorded since 1993.

IMAGED INDEXES (PRE AND POST 1959)

• Entries are organised similarly to a telephone directory.
• Entries were made in the pre and post ’59 places indexes only when the property was first registered, not every time it was sold.
• Entries in the places index were updated if there were changes to the property description, e.g. the house number changes.
• New proprietors were always indexed.
• Wherever possible, a person’s name will be indexed only once, and all their property will be listed underneath their name.

If a person bought property both before and after 1959 an index entry for their name will have been made in both the Pre and Post ’59 indexes.