About the archives

Our Old Aberdeen House office is open Monday from 9.30am to 4.30pm.

Our Town House office is open  Friday from 9.30am to 4.30pm.

The Archives houses the records of Aberdeen City Council and its predecessors dating back to the twelfth century. In addition, the Archives currently administers the records inherited by Aberdeenshire Council at a local government re-organisation in 1996. The Archives also hold the Assessor’s records for the Grampian Joint Valuation Board.

Our collections also include the records of local businesses, churches, charities, voluntary organisations and individuals. Some records are held under the Charge and Superintendence of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland.

Our major holdings are:

• Local authority records for the City, including those relating to the burghs of Aberdeen, Old Aberdeen and Woodside
• School and education records
• Burial records for City cemeteries
• Architectural drawings and papers relating to many (but not all) City buildings
• Registers of shipping and sea fishing vessels for the Port of Aberdeen
• Burgh Register of Sasines (including Town Clerk’s Protocol Books) from 1484 - 1809
• Kirk Session records for St. Nicholas, St. Clement’s, St. Clement’s Free, John Knox, Langstane and Greyfriars parishes - original Church of Scotland records for Aberdeenshire, Banffshire and Kincardineshire can be found at the National Archives for Scotland
• Congregational, Episcopal and Methodist Church Records for a number of congregations in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire
• Private records of individuals and businesses
• The surviving records of local government administration in the former counties of Aberdeen, Kincardine and the part of historic Banffshire now in Aberdeenshire
• Valuation Rolls and Registers of Electors

Please note that we do not hold or have access to census records, Old Parish Registers, or birth, marriage and death certificates. These can be accessed via the pay per view website Scotland's People or by visiting your local Registrar.

Some of the burial registers we hold for Aberdeen City have been digitised and are available to view at Deceased Online.

Kirk Session Records for the whole of Scotland can now be accessed in either of our searchrooms. This follows a collaborative project between the Church of Scotland and the National Archives for Scotland.

We have no plans in place to digitise the rest of our collection at present. Our Online Catalogue is also available, and we have a number of electronic lists on our Catalogues page.

Our research and copying services have also been temporarily suspended during our move out of Old Aberdeen House and, whilst e-mail enquiries remain open at archives@aberdeencity.gov.uk, we may not be able to answer all queries whilst access to our collections is limited.

Free parking is available on-site at the Old Aberdeen House office, while the Town House office is served by City Centre fee-paying car parks.

No, readers tickets are not required at present. However, identification may be required to access certain records under the Data Protection Act. Please consult us for further information.

As spaces are limited, it is helpful if readers book a seat in advance, particularly those readers coming from a distance or who intend to work in either office for several days or weeks.

We do not hold, or have access to, birth, marriage or death certificates. The best to find historical information is by using the pay-per-view site Scotland's People or by visiting your local Registrar (if resident in Scotland).

We do not hold, or have access to, census records. The best place to find these is online at the pay-per-view site Scotland's People. Please note that both Aberdeen City Libraries Local Studies and Aberdeenshire Libraries Local Studies can provide access to census records on microfilm, as can the Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society.

While access to most records held by the Archives is free to the public, users of certain classes of records for commercial purposes will be subject to charges (details available on request).

Charges are applicable for various services such as photography, copying and research carried out by members of staff on behalf of an enquirer. Please see our Table of Fees for further information.

Our research and copying services have also been temporarily suspended during our move out of Old Aberdeen House and, whilst e-mail enquiries remain open at archives@aberdeencity.gov.uk, we may not be able to answer all queries whilst access to our collections is limited.

Our staff will be happy to tell you which collections would best answer your enquiry and show you how to use the finding aids in the searchroom.

Because our documents are irreplaceable, we do not let them leave the Archive searchroom. If they are not too fragile or subject to copyright and other restrictions, we may photocopy individual items, or you may be allowed to photograph them.

We offer a range of outreach activities, which includes visits to the archives. These can be done either during the day or in the evening depending on how busy we are. A tour of the archive building will take place, followed by an exhibition of archive material.

We are also happy to come to you and provide talks on various topics of interest, though we are unable to bring original documents with us. Again, this can be during the day or in the evening. Please contact us for further information.

Archives are original documents produced by official bodies, societies and individuals that are no longer in current use. They can be used for all sorts of research, including local history and tracing your family history.

In an archive, you may be able to find plans, maps, photographs, ledgers, volumes, and individual documents and letters, estate records, business and industrial records, records created by various organisations, associations, trade incorporations, trade unions and societies, and collections created by individuals and families.

If you use a pen when working with archive material, you could accidentally mark a document. As pencil marks can be more easily erased, we ask all our readers to use a pencil.