Edinburgh, Scotland, Extent Rolls, 1580-1847

This collection includes extent rolls from Edinburgh, Scotland, dated between 1580 and 1847. Extent rolls were tax documents comprising information about rental owners' properties. Owners were not taxed for unoccupied properties. For most of this collection's time period, property addresses were not included, however, after 1820, property addresses were included more often.

Using this collection

Extent rolls often provide:

The extent taxes were collected annually, which means each record can place an ancestor in a specific location for a certain year, allowing you to track an ancestor's property over time. Tax records do not have as much detail as a census, but they provide information in the years between censuses. Using these extent rolls, you can trace an ancestor's occupational history over multiple decades.

Collection in context

The extent rolls were created by officials working for the city of Edinburgh.

Extent rolls created from the late 1500s to the early 1700s recorded how much tax the king expected from each royal burgh. These taxes were collected sporadically when the central government needed additional funds. By the 1700s, the extent rolls included information about taxes collected on an annual basis by local authorities for local projects, such as bridges and harbours. This collection begins in 1748 when the original four tax districts were each split into two sections. During the 1800s, many burghs stopped collecting extent taxes, and Parliament eliminated the extent tax in 1896.

Bibliography

Edinburgh City Archives. "Edinburgh Extent or Stent Rolls." Accessed March 3, 2022. https://catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk/scancatalogue/details.aspx?reference=GB236%2fSL35&st=1&tc=y&tl=n&tn=y&tp=n&k=&ko=o&r=gb236&ro=s&.

Philibert-Ortega, Gena. "Genealogy 101: Tax Records." Genealogy Bank. Accessed March 3, 2022. https://blog.genealogybank.com/genealogy-101-tax-records.html.

University of Southern California. "Research Guides: Evaluating Primary Sources." Accessed March 3, 2022. https://libguides.usc.edu/primarysources/evaluate.