Wills & Testaments
- A will is a document drawn prior to death. Wills include the name of the executor and an inventory of property, financial status, bank accounts, debts, money owed from debtors and estate papers.
- A testament is a legal document drawn after death. Its purpose is to name an executor to handle affairs of the deceased.
Wills and Testaments were processed through the Commisary courts and the Sheriff courts. Most records of wills and inventories are held at General Register House in Edinburgh. A searchable index to Scottish Wills & Testaments from 1500-1901, comprising over 500,000 names of 'defuncts', is available online at <Scotland's People>.
Many published indexes can be consulted in local libraries in Scotland, and also through LDS Family History Centres around the world.
Many land and property records are held at http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/ of which probably the main ones are the Registers of Sasines, recording the transfer of ownership of land. They have a fact sheet on inheriting land and buildings.
For another explanation and further links go to SCAN Research Tools, choose "knowledge base", in the menu of record types choose "Sasine abridgements".
Registers of Scotland Executive Agency keep Scotland's National Land and Property Registers. They have digitised the search sheets which provide a way of finding the deeds and sasines for a property. By going to the "citizen's area" of their web site it is possible to obtain information about a property - without using this you may have to search a variety of indexes of sasines. Alan Stewart's book "Gathering the Clans - Tracing Scottish Ancestry on the Internet" has a very helpful section on land records.