ScotlandsPlaces hosted tax rolls and OS Name Books to join ScotlandsPeople

ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) has added an update to say that the Ordnance Survey Name Books, as well as the tax rolls currently hosted on ScotlandsPlaces (www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk), will be made available on the ScotlandsPeople website from June 25th, following the plug being pulled on ScotlandsPlaces on June 24th (see https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/05/plug-to-be-pulled-on-scotlandsplaces.html).

Unfortunately there will be some charges introduced:

Records can be searched and viewed free of charge. There will be a small charge to save copies. Additionally, we have created a new name index of male and female servant tax rolls, for which there will be a small charge to view records. 

Further additions to ScotlandsPeople's maps and plans section will follow later on this year, with content from ScotlandsPlaces.

The full announcement is available at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/news-and-articles/more-records-coming.

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Plug to be pulled on ScotlandsPlaces website next month

This has been expected for some time, but it looks like the ScotlandsPlaces website at www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk is to be ended on June 24th. The following message is currently being displayed on the websites:

Scotlands Places will switched off on 24th June 2025, however users will be able to access the materials directly from each of the contributing bodies.
HES material can be found on trove.scot.
NLS material can be found at nls.uk and maps.nls.uk.
NRS records will be accessible through scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
Further information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland. 

 

ScotlandsPlaces was launched in October 2009 (see https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2009/10/scotlandsplaces-website-online.html), and has provided a variety of resources free of charge for Scottish genealogists and historians for over 15 years. But the priorities of the founding institutions - the NRS, Historic Environment Scotland (previously RCAHMS), and the NLS - have changed massively since then, each now developing their own separate platforms and doing heir own thing. Whilst the message on the website states that material will be ytransfered to these platforms, it does not say that ALL the material will be transferred, and whether it will continue to be offered on the free basis that it always has done. Whilst Trove and the NLS platforms are free, ScotlandsPeople is not; fingers crossed the NRS will soon tell us how to access records such as the 17th and 18th century land and tax records currently available on ScotlandsPlaces.

It's a sad day, and having seen the poor version of the new replacemernt NRS website in recent months, I donlt have a lot of faith in the institution, but as always, remain open to be convinced that they have their users interest at heart. In the meantime, you have just over a month to use the site whilst it still exists.

RIP ScotlandsPlaces.

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

ScotlandsPlaces and Canmore are working again

The ScotlandsPlaces website at https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk is back up and running again, having faced disruption from the end of June (see http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2024/06/disruption-to-canmore-and.html). 

Other Historic Environment Scotland platforms, such as Canmore (https://canmore.org.uk), the heritage catalogue, are also back up and running. 

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Disruption to Historic Environment Scotland platforms, including Canmore and ScotlandsPlaces

From Historic Environment Scotland (www.historicenvironment.scot):

Early last week we noticed some unusual activity on a server that supports Canmore, PastMap, Buildings at Risk Register and Scotland's Places. As a precaution, we took this and related services offline to investigate further and prevent additional risk to our systems.

At this time, we have found no evidence that any information was stolen or accessed.

We're currently working on moving these services to a new and more secure platform. Rather than bringing the old systems back online first, we've decided to move everything to the new one as soon as possible. This means the websites will be impacted a bit longer, but they will be safer in the long run.

We appreciate your patience as we make this important switch. We'll continue to update you on our progress through this webpage. We expect to have a clearer timeline for when the websites will be back up and running soon.

In the meantime, our teams are ready to help. Contact us on the following email addresses depending on your query:

    Enquiries relating to our archives or archival services: archives@hes.scot
    Enquiries about Canmore and PastMap: archives@hes.scot
    Enquiries about the Buildings at Risk Register: barr@hes.scot

Several of our datasets, including Canmore point data, are still available to download from https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/, which is unaffected.

Thank you for your understanding! 

(Source: https://www.historicenvironment.scot/about-us/news/system-outage/ - with thanks to Andrew Armstrong, via the Scottish Genealogy Network)

On the ScotlandsPlaces site the following note is at the top of the page, with searches on the site returning no data:

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.