Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

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Currie
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Location: Australia

Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by Currie » Sun Oct 24, 2010 7:32 am

Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

A spectacular array of Scottish Post-office Directories is now online at the Internet Archive. The digitisation appears to have been funded by National Library of Scotland. If you can’t see yours here try a search.

ABERDEEN - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

AIRDRIE - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

AYRSHIRE - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

BARRHEAD - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

DALKEITH - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

DUNDEE - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

EDINBURGH - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

FORFAR - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

GLASGOW - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

GREENOCK - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

HELENSBURGH - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

INVERNESS - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

MUSSELBURGH - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

PAISLEY - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

PERTH - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

PETERHEAD - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

PORTOBELLO - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

RENFREWSHIRE - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

STIRLING - http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... pe%3Atexts

Hope that’s useful
Alan

Montrose Budie
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Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by Montrose Budie » Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:41 pm

Note that many of the cities and counties have more than one directory on this site.

I haven't checked them all but there's many for Dundee and Glasgow, going back beyond the PO Directories, to the City Directories that existed before that point, in both cases 1809.

mb

speleobat2
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Location: USA--Alabama

Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by speleobat2 » Sun Oct 24, 2010 4:13 pm

Hi Alan,

Thanks for posting this! Do you know if there is a way to search the individual directories? The Aberdeen directory for 1911-1912 has 790 pages and when I looked at it using the Read Online feature, it was loading one page at a time. With my dial-up it might be next week before I see the whole thing!

Carol :D
Looking for: Clerihew, Longmuir/Longmore, Chalmers, Milne, Barclay in Newhills,
Munro, Cadenhead, Raitt, Ririe/Reary

SarahND
Site Admin
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Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by SarahND » Sun Oct 24, 2010 5:38 pm

Hi Carol,
If you click on the "read online" version, up in the upper right side of the browser page will be a search box. Fill in your name of interest (there are no Clerihews 8) ) and it searches quite quickly.

Cheers,
Sarah

speleobat2
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Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:14 pm
Location: USA--Alabama

Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by speleobat2 » Sun Oct 24, 2010 9:03 pm

Thanks Sarah. I tried that, but when it kept saying "searching" I thought that maybe it wasn't working with my computer or the whole directory had to load first. I'll try again with some of my other family names1

Carol :D
Looking for: Clerihew, Longmuir/Longmore, Chalmers, Milne, Barclay in Newhills,
Munro, Cadenhead, Raitt, Ririe/Reary

Currie
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Location: Australia

Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by Currie » Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:44 am

Hello Carol,

I’m on slow broadband and I’ve noticed that the right hand search column sometimes takes a while to load and also the pages especially if I magnify them. Sometimes also the search column results can be many and confusing.

On the first web page if you click on ‘full text’ that’s on the left side you’ll get the OCR’d text and you can search that using the page search facility of your Browser. The whole book should load relatively quickly.

The directories usually seem to be laid out in different sections, with a name directory, a street directory, and various other odds and ends. It’s not so easy to spot these in the text version.

If you find a name of interest there’ll be a page heading and number nearby. Take a note of those and go to the ‘read online’ book. Type the page number into the page box at the top right and enter. That’ll get you to the page and you can just turn them from there if necessary.

I’m not sure whether that will make things easier but you could give it a try.

All the best,
Alan

Currie
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Location: Australia

Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by Currie » Mon Oct 25, 2010 2:04 am

Here’s the full Scottish Directory list, 471 in total.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... publicdate

The National Library of Scotland has nearly 3000 of their items digitised at the Internet Archive.
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query ... sort=-date

Alan

speleobat2
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Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:14 pm
Location: USA--Alabama

Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by speleobat2 » Mon Oct 25, 2010 12:42 pm

Thanks Alan. I'll give it another try after the thunderstorms move out of our area. We were blasted out of bed at 3:45 am by the tornado sirens this morning! Better that than the tornadoes I guess! Turns out they were all radar indicated and none touched down, but I'm going to need lots of coffee this morning. Might need a nap later today too!

Carol :shock:
Looking for: Clerihew, Longmuir/Longmore, Chalmers, Milne, Barclay in Newhills,
Munro, Cadenhead, Raitt, Ririe/Reary

Currie
Posts: 3924
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:20 am
Location: Australia

Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by Currie » Tue Oct 26, 2010 12:11 am

Back again Carol,

I forgot to mention that there’s the Google advanced search of the domain, although some Scottish Directory stuff may be so recent that Google hasn't quite finished there yet. Your R.I. Printer book appears right at the end of this lot. http://www.google.com/search?q=clerihew ... 1cbdb8a4a6

Keep your head down,
All the best,
Alan

steiner
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Re: Scottish Post-Office Directories online.

Post by steiner » Tue Oct 26, 2010 1:11 pm

Thanks Currie great post.

I've already found two relatives at least in the 1840's.

thank you