Sequestration Records fee

[Tom 23]

Hi
I have discovered that a relations sequestration records from 1884 are available at the National Records of Scotland.
There is a fee of £15 to 'prepare a quote' to get a copy of the records, which after paying there is then a likely further cost which I have no idea how much this is likely to be.

I know every record is different but would be interested if anyone else has done this what total costs involved were?

I wouldn't want to pay £15 and then get stung with a high fee and waste the 'prepare a quote' fee, so would be good to know kind of worse case scenario first.

Thanks
Ps have contacted NRS for a rough ballpark figure for copies of these kinds of records but could not provide.

[Skoosh]

Tom,  how about the Edinburgh Gazette online?

Skoosh.

[Forfarian]

There's normally no charge for going to the National Records and taking a look at documents.

The £15 charge will be for the staff time required to read the documents and work out how much it would cost to photocopy them. This usually costs £0.50 per page unless they have changed that since I was last there. Obviously they can't tell you the cost of copying until they have counted the number of pages.

If you can't go there in person you could hire a researcher to do so on your behalf, or appeal for a Rootschatter who is planning a visit to order the documents and see how big a file it is.

It is sometimes possible to photograph documents with an approved camera of your own - some years ago I was permitted to photograph documents relating to the sequestration of my gggfather.

[Tom 23]

Tom,  how about the Edinburgh Gazette online?

Skoosh.

Hi Skoosh
The reason I got onto this was by using the FindMyPast newspaper archive, where his sequestration was mentioned in a Dundee newspaper and mentioned further reports would be in the Edinburgh Gazette at the end of the article, but have found absolutely nothing at all searching in the Edinburgh Gazette unfortunately.
Thanks

[Tom 23]

There's normally no charge for going to the National Records and taking a look at documents.

The £15 charge will be for the staff time required to read the documents and work out how much it would cost to photocopy them. This usually costs £0.50 per page unless they have changed that since I was last there. Obviously they can't tell you the cost of copying until they have counted the number of pages.

If you can't go there in person you could hire a researcher to do so on your behalf, or appeal for a Rootschatter who is planning a visit to order the documents and see how big a file it is.

It is sometimes possible to photograph documents with an approved camera of your own - some years ago I was permitted to photograph documents relating to the sequestration of my gggfather.

Hi Forfarian
Unfortunately I am in the south of England, so a visit in person is difficult, its just not having a clue what its going to cost in addition after paying £15, but hopefully someone who has gone through this process will see the post and be able to give me a rough idea what it might cost all in.
It would be much better if NRS could just give you a quote!
Thanks

[Forfarian]

I just explained that they can't give you a quote without getting the documents and going through them to count the pages.

When I got my gggf's sequestration papers I had to order them two days ahead of my visit because they are not stored in GRH itself and they had to be retrieved and brought there for me. I got a huge box containing dozens of bundles of documents, and I had to hunt through the box for my gggf's ones. Then I had to open the bundle and unfold each of about ten multi-page documents, and read them all to decide which ones I wanted to photograph. After I had read and photographed them I had to refold them all, tie up the bundle with red tape (the genuine article!), put the bundle back in the right place in the box, and return the box to the main desk, from which it was then returned to storage somewhere else in Edinburgh. Altogether it took me about two hours, of which maybe 25 or 30 minutes was taking the actual photographs.

I agree that it is frustrating but the alternative might be something like £x including up to y hours of staff time plus z photocopies, all further time and photocopies charged at so much per minute/page.

[Tom 23]

I just explained that they can't give you a quote without getting the documents and going through them to count the pages.

Yes I know, I just think it would be better for people if this was just factored into an overall quote then atleast people would know exactly what they were going to end up paying and could make the decision if it was within their budget whether to proceed.

[Forfarian]

I just explained that they can't give you a quote without getting the documents and going through them to count the pages.

Yes I know, I just think it would be better for people if this was just factored into an overall quote then atleast people would know exactly what they were going to end up paying and could make the decision if it was within their budget whether to proceed.

Quite. But some documents can contain dozens of pages, so if they set the charge to cover that amount of copying they might have to set it at £50 or even more.

[don_niagara]

Hello Tom,

I recently had documents copied and sent to me by the NRS (1797 Militia List, Lochbroom), the charges as noted in this thread 15 pounds minimum. The postage to me here in Canada was 4.63, and at 50 pence a page the document I wanted with postage was well under the 15 pounds.

My advice, would be send them the 15 pounds, if the quote says the copies will take you far over the 15, then, if you choose not to invest more, request they send you the last three pages, and as many of the first pages as takes you up to the 15. A large amount of the middle stuff would likely be inventories, and you may either collect them later or give them a pass.

I have only seen a few sequestrations, neither would have tipped the 15 pound limit, though I can imagine if your ancestor had a very large and complicated estate the page count good climb.

Good luck!

Donald.