Fife Council Archive Centre
Carleton House, Balgonie Road, Markinch, KY7 6AQ. Tel. 01592
583352.
email: Andrew.Dowsey@fife.gov.uk
Opening hours:
Mon - Fri : 9 - 5 (by appointment)
The Archive Centre houses the records of Fife Council and its
predecessors, the records of many Fife burghs, those of the Glenrothes
Development
Corporation and the Rothes estate papers.
Many other Fife archives are stored elsewhere. For advice on
what records are available
and where they can be consulted, contact the archivist, Andrew Dowsey.
On your first visit, please bring proof of identity to allow
the issue of a reader's
ticket.
The catalogue can be searched on the Fife Council website
(select A in the A-Z list, then
Archives). [For any given search, the online
catalogue search only returns the first 200 hits, so some manipulation
of search terms is required to ensure all relevant entries are found.]
Main holdings:
County records:
Records for all of Fife (from 1709) of the public bodies that
carried out the functions
which Fife Council still looks after today including roads maintenance,
bridges, schools,
police, etc. The records include:
- Commissioners of Supply minute books 1709-1889
- Statute Labour Road Trustees and Turnpike Trustees records
1790-1879
- Parochial
Board / Parish Council records: minute books 1845-1930
(information about the relief of paupers, management of the cemetery,
etc)
- School Records:
- School Board minutes 1873-1919 (a few schools have
management committee minutes dating up to c.1930)
- School log books 1863-1997 (the more recent ones are
closed for 50 years from the date of the last entry)
- Some School Admissions Registers (the more recent ones
are closed for 75 years from the date of the last entry)
- There is a guide to them on the Fife Council website
(select A in the A-Z list, then
Archives).
- Police Records:
- Dunfermline City Police (1874-1946)
- Kirkcaldy Burgh Police (1877-1948)
- Fife County Constabulary (1858-1949)
- Fife Constabulary (1949- )
- Fife
Family History Society
have published an Index to the Fife Constabulary Photo Criminal
Register, 1910-1920, in their Publications Series, No. 34.
- There is a
downloadable index to the Photo
Criminal Register No. 2, 1912-1923.
- St Andrews District Criminal Register, 1888 - 1899.
Names of criminals are included in the online catalogue.
Fife Family History Society
have published the index in their Publications Series, Nos.
35 & 36.
- Electoral Registers (1914-2001, with gaps).
- Minute books of Fife County Council 1889-1975
- Minute books of Fife Regional Council 1975-1995
- Minute books of Dunfermline District Council 1975-1995
- Minute books of Kirkcaldy District Council 1975-1995
- Minute books of North-East Fife District Council 1975-1995
- Records of the Dysart Combination Poorhouse, 1868-1880. On the Fife
Council website there is a list of people sent to the
poorhouse by the Parish Councils of Dysart and Markinch. (Includes
Markinch Paupers 1868 - 1888, Dysart Paupers 1878 - 1883.) Fife
Family History Society have published a more detailed copy of
the index in their Publications Series, 34.
- Records of several hospitals in Fife
Burgh & Town
Council Records
Some records are held for Anstruther, Auchtermuchty,
Buckhaven and Methil,
Burntisland,
Crail,
Culross, Cupar,
Dysart, Falkland,
Kilrenny, Kinghorn,
Kirkcaldy,
Leslie,
Leven, Markinch,
Newburgh, Newport-on-Tay,
Pittenweem,
St Andrews
and St
Monans.
N.B. The main record holdings of most of these burghs are in
other archives.
Glenrothes Development Corporation (1948-1975):
- minute books
- plans
- photographs (lots of photographs!)
- records of all aspects of the towns history from the
creation of the new town in 1948 to the winding up of the Corporation
in 1995.
Rothes Papers:
- Estate papers and accounts of the Rothes family from the
1640s to the 1900s concerning their estate in Leslie and Markinch
parishes, including:
- wage books & other records of miners employed
at Cadham, Strathore & Cluny mines c.1680-1750
- household accounts for Leslie House, including records
of payments to the family's household and farm servants
- For an overview of the papers, see Introduction
to the Rothes Papers, W G Rowntree Bodie, in Proc.
Soc. Antiq. Scot., 110, 1978-80, 404-431.
- Fife
Family History Society's Journal, Autumn 2006, includes a
list of Miners listed in the Rothes Papers.
Burial records:
- Rosyth Churchyard burial records 1813-1884
- Little Rosyth Churchyard burial records 1774-1866
- Tulliallan Churchyard & Cemetery burial records
1875-1923
- Dunfermline Cemetery 1863-1975
Quarter Sessions records:
- minute books 1787-1794, 1841-1850
- papers presented at Quarter Sessions (including lists of
men eligible to serve as special constables, and appeals against
decisions, etc) 1775-1846 (with gaps)
- summary trials records 1834-1885 (with gaps)
Hospital Records (mostly administrative files including minute
books, accounts and annual reports):
- Adamson Hospital, Cupar 1865-1979
- Dunfermline and West Fife Hospital (originally Dunfermline
Cottage Hospital) 1891-1948
- East Fife Hospitals Board of Management 1948-1974
- Kirkcaldy Cottage Hospital 1891-1948
- Memorial Cottage Hospital, St Andrews 1875-1949
- Dunfermline Combined Poorhouse and Hospital 1859-1867
- Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital 1912-1948
- Stratheden Hospital, Cupar 1867-1970s. A large collection
of records (including records of Fife and Kinross District Lunacy Board
and its successors) also includes many patients' records (closed for
100 years), visitors' books, etc.
Other records:
- Records of the Fife County Nursing Association 1922-1947
- Largo Field Studies Society
- minutes, correspondence, etc 1968-2001
- Ordnance Survey Object Name Books 1850-1854. There are
indexes to all of them except Culross and Tulliallan on the Fife
Council website. Links to the indexes here.
- Valuation Rolls for various areas and burghs in Fife
(various dates to 1975), including:
- Fife County 1872-1896, 1916-1961 (excludes Royal
Burghs* until 1930; excludes Dunfermline, Dysart & Kirkcaldy
until 1958)
- the whole county (in districts) 1961-1975
- Anstruther district 1948-1954
- St Andrews district 1931-1970
- individual burghs for various years, see separate burgh
entries above.
* Royal Burghs were Auchtermuchty, Anstruther Easter,
Anstruther Wester, Culross, Cupar, Crail, Earlsferry, Falkland,
Inverkeithing, Kilrenny, Kinghorn, Newburgh & St Andrews.
An excellent guide to the location of pre-1900 archive
material of genealogical and
local historical importance is "The Archives of Fife"
by Andrew
Campbell, published 1997, which is available from the Fife
Family History Society
or the Tay
Valley Family History Society. It is a
comprehensive guide to the records in all the Fife repositories
including the Council
Archive Centre (although the records it lists as being held at Fife
House, Kirkcaldy Town
House and ASDARC in Cardenden are all now held at the Council Archive
Centre).
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Page maintained by William McM. Owen
: last updated
7 June, 2012
