Ancestry adds Dunbartonshire Valuation Rolls 1855-1930 collection

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) has added the following collection, albeit it is a bit strange in the way it has been done:

Dumbarton, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, Valuation Rolls, 1855-1930
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62870/
Source: Valuation Rolls. Dumbarton, Scotland: West Dunbartonshire Council Arts & Heritage Service.

About Dumbarton, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, Valuation Rolls, 1855-1930

This collection contains valuation rolls for Dunbartonshire, Scotland, dated between 1855 and 1930. Valuation rolls record property ownership information for use in assessing local taxes. The rolls were produced annually to provide ownership, tenancy, and occupancy information for every property in a county or city, including houses, apartments, churches, schools, and businesses. Information may be limited in the documents from the earlier years covered by this collection.

Using this collection

Records in this collection may include the following information:

• Name
• Occupation
• Name of tenant
• Name of occupant
• Address
• Parish name

In addition to the information listed above, valuation rolls normally state the type of property and its monetary value or rent charged. The information in each valuation roll provides a snapshot of where your ancestor owned property or lived at a specific time. You may be able to establish a timeline of your ancestor’s residential mobility and occupational history by searching for them in registers produced over several years.

Although they don’t have as much information as a census, the rolls are useful to research your ancestor’s life between the census years. The valuation rolls also may have information about buildings that a census wouldn’t account for because there was no one living there at the time of the census.

For further information visit https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62870/

Comment: After a few initial tests on this collection, I am a bit confused about the coverage. On the browse area to the right, it shows only the following as browsable registers, with images available:

1913-1914
1914-1915
1915-1916
1916-1917
1917-1918
1919-1920
1920-1921
1921-1922

Test searches prior to 1913 and after 1922 using common surnames such as Smith and MacDonald, do indeed return records as far back as 1861, athough I've not seen any yet going as far back as 1855. However, these are in transcript form only, with no images available. Records do indeed continue after 1922, and go up to 1930, but again in transcript form only. 

I don't know if more images are to be made available, I suspect not, as it is quite an odd way to gio about releasing them if so!

Note that valuation records for the same period can be found on ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), with images for all in the coverage available (every tenth years from 1855-1915, every 5th year thereafter up to 1940).

Chris

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