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.

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

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 census is available but is copyright and cannot be included here.)
• Valuation Rolls, 1855 - 1967 (tax rolls listing owners and occupiers of property)
...
• Registers of Voters, 1833 - 1900, some years only
• names on the War Memorials
• A list of local men who signed up as Special Constables, 1914 - 1920
• Notes on the Newport Town Council Minutes 1887 - 1962, with gaps
• Shareholders of the Wormit Electric Company, 1923 - 1929
• Individuals and Families - only 1 testament so far
• 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)
•    Kirk Session Minutes (1695-1884) & Heritors' Records (1845-1921) - notes and extracts from them

About Places         Read more

• a list of present-day streets and addresses which links to information about the properties; also shown on a map
• a list of old house names and old addresses linked to their present-day locations; and a few notes on 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 - from a survey taken in 1992 - 1993 : notes about the cemetery; the stones; a plan; and an index to names on the stones
...
• Valuation Rolls, 1855 - 1967 (tax rolls listing owners and occupiers of property)
• Sasines - notes, maps and extracts from the land transaction records, 1782 - circa 1890
• a list of old street names with their present-day equivalents
• Ordnance Survey [Map] Name Books, 1854
• 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, maps from Dundee Directories, properties map, and links to maps on other sites.

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 1967:

• 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 1967 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.

What's New?

Added in October 2020:

• Added: Valuation Roll: 1895-6
• Early Land Taxation records, 1649 - 1820

Added in November 2020:

• Added: links to Newport History Group's website
• Added: Valuation Rolls: 1897-98, 1915-6, 1969-70 (a few entries)
• Added: some older directories: 1842 Gentlemen's Seats, 1842-43 Dundee, 1845 Dundee, 1846-47 Dundee, 1850 Dundee, 1853 Noblemen, 1856-57 Dundee, 1857 Noblemen, 1858-59 Dundee, 1862 County ; but only 110 entries between them
• Added: Town Council Minutes: newspaper reports to cover missing volumes for 1887-88, 1898-99
• Solved: the location of Newport Golf Course

More is to follow.

Search:

You can search across the whole site except for the blog (which has its own search facility). 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.
• Names of institutions, premises, societies, etc. change over time. Don't just search for today's name, be more general.
• 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  

Two other local sites are well worth visiting: Newport History Group's Website - packed with photos and information; and Ian Lindsay's @postcard13 Twitter feed which has a marvellous collection of postcards, not only of Newport but also North Fife.

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