This is a brief guide to researching records of landed estates. The National Archives is not the best place to start your research as landed estate records are kept in a variety of archives. Instead, start by searching the National Register of Archives by family name to find which archives hold the information you are seeking. This guide will help you to find other helpful sources of information.
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What do I need to know before I start?
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Try to find out:
- the name of the landed estate or seat
- names of families that have owned the landed estate
- which county the landed estate is in
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What records can I see online?
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Sutherland Collection papers
Browse the Sutherland Collection papers covering areas in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent. This collection shows the kind of records that can be found for landed estates.
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What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?
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Estate papers (formerly in private hands)
Search Discovery, our cataloguea search tool with descriptions of tens of millions of documents from the UK central government, law courts, and other national bodies, in the records of the Public Record Office (PRO), Chancery (C), Special Collections (SC), Land Revenue Records Office (LRRO), Duchy of Lancaster (DL), State Papers (SP) and Crown Estates (CRES) for estate papers, some of which were formerly in private hands, by name of the estate, seat or family you are interested in.
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To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£there will be a charge) or, where you can identify a specific record referencea unique set of letters and numbers identifying a document in The National Archives, order a copy (£there will be a charge).
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What records can I find in other archives and organisations?
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Family and estate index
Search the National Register of Archives (NRA) database by family name to establish which archives hold the records of a particular landed estate.
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Nottinghamshire landed estate records (12th-20th century)
Browse the Nottingham University Collections website. The collections represent some of the most important Nottinghamshire landowning families.
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East Riding of Yorkshire landed estate records
Browse the University of Hull Archives website for information about the family and estate collections in its care. The collections provide valuable material on the history of Yorkshire with some of the manorial records dating back to 1317.
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What other resources will help me find information?
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Websites
Download the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland's Landed Estates Research Guide for information on landed estates in Northern Ireland.
Visit the National Archives of Scotland website for information on landed estates in Scotland.
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Books
Read Principal Family and Estate Collections: Family Names: Volume I A-K and Volume II L-W (Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1996 and 1999).
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Census
Maps
Manors