Search OS Name Books
Search OS name books by reference; by county, burgh, city, town; or by transcripts of the text.
Search Place Names in OS Name Books
Search county lists of names of buildings/geographical features located in OS name books.
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Narrow your search by selecting a type of record, e.g. 'Morayshire OS Name Books (1868-1871)', or leave selection as 'ALL'. Select more than one type by holding down 'Ctrl' when selecting any entries.
OS Name Books on Scotland’s People cover the period 1845-1880.
This search field cannot be used jointly with the 'Transcription search' field.
Search options
Exact names only Searches for records matching the exact spelling of your input, ensuring precise results without variations or misspellings.
Fuzzy matching Finds records that closely resemble your input, allowing for slight variations or common misspellings in names or terms.
Wildcards allowed Use special characters (e.g., *, ?) in your search input to represent unknown or variable characters, expanding search flexibility.
Names that begin with Retrieves records of names starting with the specified letters, useful for finding entries with common prefixes or partial names.
Phonetic matching Searches for records that sound like your input, capturing variations in spelling that share the same pronunciation.
Some records include plain-text transcriptions of the text in the image. These can be searched by key words. For example, the word 'mountain' will return results for any instances of 'mountain' in the OS Name Books transcriptions. This search field cannot be used jointly with the 'Place search' field.
Enter a reference from the NRS catalogue (e.g. OS1/1/1), or leave this field blank and search by record type, date range, or a place or transcription search.
Search Ordnance Survey (OS) Name Books for information on places and buildings on 19th century OS mapping.
Images of most original OS Name Books are accompanied by searchable transcriptions of the text.
Corresponding OS maps can be viewed online at the National Library of Scotland.
Read how to search these records and understand their contents in our OS Name Books guide. You can also read how to: