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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Topic started by: Berlin-Bob on Friday 24 December 04 09:57 GMT (UK)
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Found this article in the Ancestry Daily News (http//www.ancestry.com/dailynews ) Article no longer available
Ancestry Daily News, 21 December 2004
Never Mind How to Pronounce It, Sasines Are Useful
– Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA (Scot)
Sasines are found in Scotland. They are records of land changing hands (whether by sale or inheritance), of mortgages, and of anything that involved the transfer of rights or assets associated with land. Rights can include such things as coal and the fish in streams and rivers.
Sasines go back a long way (to the 1500s). An effective system of registration started in 1617. The proper name is an instrument of sasine. It recorded the act of transfer, which at one time was more than just signing papers--giving a handful of earth, for example.
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By the way, I have heard many pronunciations for “sasines,” but the one that seems to be used most consistently is to make the word rhyme with "raisins."
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The full article (very informative !) exceeds the 5500 characters limit on messages, but you can read it here, at: http//www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=A947101 (Article no longer available)
She also gives tips on where to find them, and for further reading.
Non subscription source acknowledged - Copyright Editor
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WHAT IS A SASINE AND WHAT INFORMATION DOES IT CONTAIN?
An instrument of sasine (pronounced ‘say-zin’) is a legal document that records the transfer of ownership (usually a sale or an inheritance) of a piece of land or of a building.
It will normally detail the names of the new and previous owners and will give a basic description of the property transferred.
There will usually be an indication of the price paid for the property.
Sasines can also give you information about family history, particularly where an individual is passing land to another family member, or where the family designation is revealed (e.g. ‘John Campbell of X’).
Sometimes information given in one sasine will give you clues as to earlier titles in the chain and so lead you back to the earlier history of the ownership of a building or piece of land.
Information supplied by the National Archive of Scotland.
The first attempt at a Register of Sasine was made in 1599 and ended in 1609 This register although incomplete is held by the NAS.
The first true register was started in 1617 and continued until the present day ... many of the records are held by the NAS..
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Sasines can be accessed in two forms. There are abridged registers from 1780 onwards up to 20th century for most Scottish Counties with some gaps, like no 'person' indexes or no 'place' indexes for some spans. You can look up the documents but the abstracts are very informative. They are quite handy if you are looking for a geographical location such as an estate or a farmhouse or a commercial unit because they give both owners and tenants or borrower and lender in the case of mortgages. They also give the superior of an estate as well as the undertenant.
They are in New Register House in Edinburgh. For earlier Sasines it is more touch and go as there are few indexes. You just have to wade through the abridgements around the time you are looking for then order sight of or copies of the documents. I have used them quite extensively for land history, particularly for a book I wrote on Eastern Renfrewshire called 'Eastwood District History and Heritage' 1989, and a work I co-authored with Stuart Nisbet 'Robert Allason and Greenbank'. We have both used them to study the histories of estates, cotton mills etc. They are useful for histories of land-owning families. Their main value to genealogists is for ancestors who were long term tenants or owners of property, and sometimes for lenders as they give kinship and inheritance information.
Unfortunately most of my ancestors don't figure in the Sasines. If you are lucky enough to have ancestors who did, they will make a difference.
Other sources: some major towns and cities have published topographic deeds. One of the most important examples are for Glasgow and surrounding areas where deeds were tested in Glasgow, such as Renwick's Glasgow Protocols. These are available in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow and I expect in the National Library of Scotland where other such collections are housed. Renwick's volumes are very well indexed and a very good source.
For both England and Scotland you can use the national public record office volumes (PRO England, SRO Scotland), for periods up to 17th century. In Scotland 15th to 16th century records occur in the Register of the Great Seal (Reg Mag Sig) and the Register of the Secret Seal (Reg Sig Sig - to some extent duplicates) which are Crown copies of land deeds with person and place indexes. Up to 17th century Register of the Privy Council contains court cases, pursuits, securities and victims of crime. In England there are Calendars of Inquisitions, Charter Rolls, Close Rolls etc for the medieval period, and Calendar of State Papers up to 17th century does more or less the same as its Scottish counterpart. These can be found in large town libraries.
Happy searching
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Just a matter of interest ... I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the word is closely related (if not actually the same word) as SEIZIN or SEISIN, a medieval term meaning estate or property.
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Why is this a sticky?
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Dave
Dunno but glad it is cos it's something that a lot of people wouldn't know about. Especially folks new to Scottish research.
Ann
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Since my original reply in 2005 the Abridged Seisins from 1780 onwards have been digitised, but you still have to go to New Register House in Edinburgh to look them up. But search is easier as a result.
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Can I ask what info you need to search? An address or is a general area enough? Or do you need to search by name AND address? Just wondering what scope there is for browsing..
cheers
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G'day all ... the Ancestry Daily News (http/www.ancestry.com/dailynews ) and the full article link of http//www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir.asp?sourceid=831&key=A947101 ... (listed above) are dead links, giving me an error message :( ... so, I had a look around and found this ... :)
... http://www.nas.gov.uk/guides/sasines.asp ... it is the website of the National Archives of Scotland ... hope this helps someone :)
... and thanks to Berlin-Bob for original post as I'm now at G,G,G, Grandfather, 1800 and my search path is drying up ... hopefully sasines might help
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Can I ask what info you need to search? An address or is a general area enough? Or do you need to search by name AND address? Just wondering what scope there is for browsing..
It depends when you are looking. The Great Dividing Date is 1780. There are indexes to the sasines between 1617 and 1780 in book form in General Register House. These are arranged by surname, with variant spellings grouped together. They give you the name of the person concerned, their designation ('in' or 'of' somewhere), any relationships mentioned in the original document ('son of', 'daughter of', 'spouse of', 'relict of' etc) and the series, volume number(s) and page number(s) of the document. There are cross entries to spouses which may give you additional information about who the spouse was. The indexes are usually in two books oper county, one book covering 1617 to 1700 or 1720, and a second one covering 1700 or 1720 to 1780. Some of these books were actually published, but not all. For instance Angus 1617-1700 was published, but Angus 1700-1780 was not.
After 1780 the indexing system is different. An annual list of abridgments of sasines, in numerical (chronological) order, was printed for each county, each abridgment containing information similar to that in the older indexes, but also including a very brief description of the property involved, and a reference to any earlier sasine dealing with the same property. These books have now been scanned and the scans can be viewed in the Historical Search Room in General Register House. The quality of the scans is not always good, and though the search will pick up some spelling variations of names, I would not want to guarantee that it will always find every relevant listing all of the time.
As an example, this is my transcription of one such abridgment, from Lanarkshire: No 5139 1806-09-12 GR 764/200 Jean Waddell, sister of William Waddell of Easter Moffat, and William Waddell, son of George Waddell, of Ballochnie, their nephew, seised in liferent and fee respectively Sept 9 1806 in the 40s land of Easter Moffat, par Bartramshotts, 1 merk land of Easter Calderhead and 20s land of Paperthills, par Shotts, and teinds, under burden of a liferent annuity of £20 to Christian Waddell, spouse of James Muir of Gilgarth, £2000 to Margaret Waddell, daughter of Patrick Waddell of Bogo and £100 to Agnes Gairdner daughter of John Gairdner of Broompark, on disp and settlement by the said William Waddell, May 6 1803.
It is possible to search the post-1780 abridgments by place name.
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Believe it or not, today is the last official day of the Register of Sasines. But reports of its death might be rather premature -
http://www.scotsman.com/news/national-register-of-land-ownership-lives-on-1-3627784
Harry