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Isometric Plan reproduced by Permission of ScotlandsPeople
Scotland's
People Centre is a 'one-stop-shop' for Scottish genealogy research in
the centre of Edinburgh. It is intended to coordinate services previously provided separately by
the General Register Office for Scotland, National Archives of
Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon |
Scotlands People Centre, the integrated Scottish family history
centre for genealogy research is now open .
The entrance fee is £10 per day which allows
access to the digitised records in Register House, and other resources from
9.30am to 4.30pm. Monday to Friday.
For first time visitors a free
two-hour search session is available in the Adam Dome. These free search sessions run
from 10am to 12pm, and again from 2pm to 4 pm
The Centre has four search rooms, a café, a shop and a
an exhibition area spread over
the two buildings General Register House and New Register House at the East End
of Princes Street, Edinburgh.
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Scotlands People Centre
exploits the prime location of
historic
buildings within the heart of Edinburgh, which are a tourist attraction in their own right. Key
benefits:
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Online and
off-line facilities
for all users
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Well equipped
search rooms
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Good disabled
access
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Seminar and
exhibition space
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Entrance shop and
reception area
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Main entrance at
Register House
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The National Archives of Scotland's headquarters, General Register House, is one of the oldest custom built
Government archive buildings still in continuous use in the world.
In the mid-1700's the need to provide accommodation for the national archives was widely
recognised. In 1765 a grant of £12,000 was obtained to carry out the work and a site was chosen fronting the end of the North Bridge then under construction. The eminent architect Robert Adam and his brother James were selected for the project.
Robert Adam died suddenly in 1792 before his building was complete. The architect Robert Reid finished the
design, including the interior in the 1820s.
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Until recently, the main records which people could access as the basis for their family history
searches were held by three separate institutions:
* General Register Office for Scotland (GROS)
* National Archives of Scotland (NAS)
* Court of the Lord Lyon
They occupied the two key buildings – General Register House and New Register House –
adjacent to each other at Edinburgh's East End of Princes Street. Both
buildings have grade ‘A’ listed status.
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The Scottish Family History
Centre,
which has been named ScotlandsPeople Centre, continues the work already
advanced in creating digital images of the Scottish records, and online versions of indexes.
Staff offer a service to
visitors, helping them to exploit the potential of these
historic Register House buildings and their contents.
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The New Register House site was acquired in 1859. The building was first occupied in 1861 and completed in 1863. The main feature of this building is the fireproof central repository, the Dome, which consists of five tiers of ironwork shelving and galleries – totalling over 27 metres high.
The Dome contains 6.5km of shelving upon which sit some half a million volumes. These include some 400,000 statutory registers of all the births, deaths and marriages in Scotland since 1855 and open Census records from 1841 to 1891.
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Not able to visit
Edinburgh anytime soon? Don't worry.
We are here now at Scots Family to offer you a first class
Scottish genealogy history research service on the records of Scotland's
people .
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