The Newport, Wormit & Forgan Archive

Welcome to The Newport, Wormit & Forgan Archive

What's It All About?

This site brings together some of the historical information about the inhabitants and places in Newport-on-Tay, Wormit and Forgan in Fife, Scotland, which exists largely on paper and makes it searchable.

More importantly, it links these together - to show who lived where and when. So you can find out who lived in your house, the previous owners of a shop, or information about other buildings; or find out where your ancestors lived.

The blog, has articles, background information, introductions and comments on local history, leaving the main site for the records themselves.

The site deals with historic data and has a cutoff date of 1974.

What's Here?

About People         Read more

• Directories: the Newport & Wormit section of the Dundee Directories, and the Newport, Wormit & Forgan sections of national directories (e.g. Slater, Macdonald). All known directories from 1825 - 1974.
• Census 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901. (The 1911 & 1921 censuses are available but are copyright and cannot be included here.)
• Valuation Rolls, 1855 - 1974 (tax rolls listing owners and occupiers of property)
...
• Registers of Voters, 1833 - 1900, some years only
• names on the War Memorials
• Which Cemetery? - a combined listing of those named on stones in Forgan Kirkyard and Vicarsford Cemetery, purchasers of lairs at Vicarsford (surname only), plus links to Newport / Forgan residents who are in the Dundee Howff Burials Index or who purchased lairs in Dundee Western Cemetery
• A list of local men who signed up as Special Constables, 1914 - 1920
• Notes on the Newport Town Council Minutes 1887 - 1962, with gaps, and a list of councillors
• Businesses - Woodhaven Shipbuilding, Thomas Roger, John Hay, and more
• Individuals and Families
• Some older material:
•    the Hearth Tax list of 1692 - 1695
•    the Old Parochial Registers of Baptisms, Forgan parish, 1695 - 1854
•    the Old Parochial Registers of Marriages, Forgan parish, 1703 - 1855
•    Mortcloth Payments, 1695 - 1835 (for records of deaths / burials)
•    Kirk Session Minutes (1695-1884) & Heritors' Records (1845-1921) - notes and extracts from them
•    18th century Taxation Records, 1748 - 1798

About Places         Read more

• a list of present-day streets and addresses which links to information about the properties which existed up to 1974; also shown on a map
• a list of old house names and old addresses linked to their present-day locations; and a few notes, comments and earlier sightings for some individual properties
• Forgan Kirkyard - an introductory page, the stones - inscriptions and photos; a plan; and a list of burials from 1899 onwards (198 entries)
• Vicarsford Cemetery - notes about the cemetery; the lairs and stones with a lair plan; and an index to names
...
• Valuation Rolls, 1855 - 1974 (tax rolls listing owners and occupiers of property)
• 1909-10 Finance Act - Valuation Office: Field Surveys
• Index to Dean of Guild Plans 1890-1907 (incomplete)
• Sasines - notes, maps and extracts from the land transaction records, from 1782 to April 1894 (for Newport) and to December 1896 (for Wormit)
• a list of old street names with their present-day equivalents
• Ordnance Survey [Map] Name Books, 1854
• Map of Place Names & Old Places - their meanings and earliest occurrences (from The Place-names of Fife).
• competing railway plans
• Some older material:
•    Early Land Taxation records, 1649 - 1820

Library

• A library with histories and descriptions of the parish; plus pages missing from the internet copy of Neish's History of Newport...; and more.

Maps

• Maps: including - parish boundary, burgh boundary, 19th-century feuing areas & estates, maps from Dundee Directories, properties map, competing railway plans, links to maps on other sites, and more.

Photo Galleries

• Photo Galleries - three collections of photos of the Norwegain Air Force at Woodhaven 1942-45

Who Lived in Your House?

You can begin to trace the history of your house, a shop or building, if it was built before 1974:

• if you know its current address, search the present-day addresses
• if you know the name of a former head of the household, search the Directories or the Census.
• if you know a house name or an old (pre-1964) address, search the house names and old addresses
• if you can locate it on a map, use the properties map

These will lead to a page of information about every property standing in 1974 plus many that had been demolished by that time. On the entries in the Directories, Census and Valuation Rolls, following the link Location will also lead on to this page about the property concerned.

Where Did My Ancestors Live?

You can search to find where your ancestors lived, if they were here before 1975:

• if you know the name of a head of the household, search the Directories.
• if you know their names, and they lived here in 1901 or earlier, search the Census.
• search for their surname in the Valuation Rolls.
• search for their surname in the box below, especially if they lived here before the 1850s

On each of these pages, follow a Location link to find where they lived.

What's New?

Added in August 2024:

• Added: Testaments of William Gordon, Woodhaven, died 1802 - details of 2 vessels owned by him
• Updated: 1909-10 Finance act : Valuation Office - pages re-written and updated.
• Added: more 1909-10 Finance Act : Valuation Office maps giving locations of properties - now cover Newport and Wormit

Added in October 2024:

• Added: Plan of part of Scotscraig (covering East Newport), John Hope 1769, - geo-referenced overlay
• Updated: Railway Plans
• Added: The Tay Bridge & Dundee Union Railway, 1864
• Added: The Newport Railways, 1865, 1866 & 1869

Search:

You can search across the whole site including the blog. It doesn't find dates or reference numbers, but will find almost anything else. Results are given as a number of 'finds', with a link to the actual entries.

Enter your search criteria in the boxes below.   (You can use * or ? wildcards.)

Some hints for searching:

• Apart from wildcards, this will search for exactly what you type in - no quotes needed.
• 'Less is more' - enter single words or just a surname, to begin with. Commas, spaces, initials can all lead to failed searches.
• Searching for Macs? Mc, Mac, M' and M (space) may exist. To search for them all, use M* in the search box. (e.g. M*Intosh or M*Donald)

Search for:     Required field   (You can use * or ? wildcards.)

and   or  

Another local site well worth visiting is Newport History Group's Website - packed with photos and information.

We hope you find this site informative.

The site was created in 2001 with a small selection of information. It was upgraded on St. Andrew's Day 2012 and has been growing ever since.

William McM. Owen & Rujirek Vanavisut