I have made a catalogue of my Edinburgh and Leith local history books at Library Thing. You can view it here. I have made extensive use of these books in writing these threads and converting them to blog posts.

Other invaluable sites I make heavy use of, and nearly always visit all of them before putting pen to paper or fingers to keys are listed below. I am neither an academic nor a “proper” historian, so I keep things at the level of what’s generally accessible and understandable to the lay person such as myself.

• Free to Use (registration may be required)
  • Archive.org – Need access to an old book? Search Archive.org and you can probably find a free to read digitised, searchable copy of it.
  • The Books of the Old Edinburgh Club – The online, digitised Books of the Old Edinburgh Club, an annual publication by the club since 1908 covering any and every aspect of Edinburgh (and Leith) history
  • Britain from Above – an online searchable database of 95,000 high resolution aerial photography in the first half of the 20th century
  • British Library on Flickr – the BL have helpfully put masses of their PD content on Flickr making it quick and easy to search and view images.
  • Capital Collections – Edinburgh City Libraries online image collection
  • Canmore – the online image, plan and historical archive of the former Royal Commission on Historic and Ancient Monuments in Scotland
  • Dean of Guild Court – Joe Rock’s amazing Annotated Catalogue of the    Edinburgh Dean of Guild Court; Architectural Plans and Planning requests for Edinburgh and Leith from 1700 – 1824.
  • Dictionary of Scottish Architects – Does exactly what it says on the tin. Find architects, design and construction details for as much of Scotland as is known about.
  • Dictionary of the Scots Language – Online dictionary of Scots words and their meanings and derivation
  • Edinburgh Bookshelf – A searchable online, digitised collection of the most important antiquarian books on Edinburgh history
  • Grace’s Guide – an extensive Wikipedia of British industries and industrialists
  • JSTOR – The digital library of Academic Journals, and one of the few places someone without an institutional affiliation can get access to academic articles. Either create a free account or use your Google logon and you can read 100 journal papers a month for free.
  • National Galleries Scotland – the online national collection of art for Scotland
  • The National Library of Scotland eResources – Scotsman, Times and Burney historic papers archives
  • Post Office Directories – From the National Library of Scotland. Online, searchable and digitised copies of nearly every Post Office directory ever published in Scotland prior to 1920.
  • The National Library of Scotland Map Library – The best site on the internet! Endless and seamless digitised maps of Scotland (and the UK) going back to since when maps were a new thing
  • The Surnames of Scotland – Online digitised book of the meanings and history of the principal family names of Scotland
  • Tenement Town – Diarmid Mogg’s excellent stair-by-stair mini biographies of Southside Tenements makes use of many of the same tools and sources that I do, in a totally different way.
  • Virtual Mitchell – Glasgow City Libraries online image collection
• Subscription or Payment required
  • Ancestry.co.uk – best used with caution due to the volume of well meaning but unsubstantiated connections on it, but again an invaluable way to do geneological research on Scottish families
  • The British Newspaper Archive – does exactly what it says on the tin (free to search but payment required for images)
  • NCAP – The National Collection of Aerial Photography of Historic Environment Scotland. Mainly UK photography, but lots worldwide too.
  • Scran.ac.uk – the online archive of Historic Environment Scotland; images, sounds, films and archives of many other Scottish institutions (note, if you are the holder of a card for a Scottish council library, you can probably log on for free)
  • Scotland’s People – the online searchable database of the geneological records of the National Records of Scotland (free to search but payment required for images)

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