Findmypast Paint A Historical Picture Of Dundee

By Hannah McLaren -

Findmypast release over 6 million historical records from Dundee and Angus, many for the first time ever online

Leading British and Irish family history website, Findmypast, is proud to announce a new online collection spanning nearly five centuries of Dundee and Angus history. Multiple archives have come together, providing a comprehensive picture of life in one of Scotland’s most notable areas, which are searchable by name for the first time. This includes original photographs of individuals and long forgotten scenes of the past, birth, marriages and deaths, tax records, electoral registers and more.

This release builds on Findmypast’s rapidly expanding collection of Scottish records, now one of the largest available online. Published in association with Leisure and Culture Dundee, University of St Andrews Library and DC Thomson, this vast archive of historical documents and original photographs provides researchers worldwide with the opportunity to discover their connections to the City of Discovery in unprecedented detail, for the first time online.

Dundee based Findmypast has scanned in full colour from paper originals where possible, and created a full name index. This new release brings together millions of complementary records from multiple institutions, which, when placed alongside existing Findmypast Scottish collections, forms one of the most comprehensive collections of genealogical records from any area of the UK online.

Take a look at a brief, historical snapshot of Dundee:

These records give names, dates, residences, occupations and document life events of the people of Dundee and Angus, also including photographic records of streets and people, a goldmine for social and family historians alike. They contain some of the oldest photographs in existence, taken in the 1840s and showing parts of the city long since lost to redevelopment.

A particular highlight is a set of 50 images of ‘Dundee Old & New’ commissioned by the Dundee Police after the Improvement Act of 1871. This photographic album illustrates the changing landscape of a Victorian burgh in the firm grip of the Industrial Revolution through a unique ‘then and now’ perspective even at that time. When used alongside tenancy and electoral records of the people who lived in these streets released at the same time and going back to as early as 1823, a detailed picture of the people of Dundee can be seen, rich and fertile ground for tracing ancestors who stood on those cobblestones.

These exciting new records include:

Fully indexed images of more than 23,600 Obituaries from local Dundee newspapers ranging from 1869-2018, added to a national Scottish collection of over 600,000.
2 million Valuation Rolls 1823-1938 for the county of Dundee & Angus
Almost 4 million Dundee & Forfarshire (Angus) Electoral Registers 1857-1939
Hundreds of thousands of indexed records of baptism, marriage & burial from across Dundee & Angus 1562-1855.
Portrait photographs of 318 male and female employees of DC Thomson who enlisted during the Second World War.
Over 5,000 comprehensively indexed original photographs of Dundee & Angus dating 1844-2010.

By improving access to these rich documents and making them searchable for the first time, Findmypast provides family historians from around the world with even more opportunities to discover their Dundee & Angus ancestors. Researchers can now uncover details of their families past and add new generations to their family tree with greater ease than ever before.