Valuation Rolls, 1855-1975, are held at the National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh (ref. VR123 - County of Wigtown) and, for some years, at the Ewart Library, Dumfries (County Treasurer's Dept). Other locally held copies, together with listings for the burghs, are listed on the parish pages. The rolls for 1855, 1865, 1875, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, 1920, 1925 and 1930 are online at the ScotlandsPeople website.

Valuation Office field books and plans (for the Valuation Office survey of 1911-1915) are held at the National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh. Details on the parish pages.

Information about many Wigtownshire buildings can be found by searching the Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1840-1940.

Details of historic buildings and archaeological sites are held by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Edinburgh. They are catalogued at the ScotlandsPlaces website. In the results, click RCAHMS. Unfortunately, not all entries have digital images.

Wigtownshire is included in the 1873 Return of Owners of Land (Scotland), which is available on the ScotlandsPlaces website (under Land Ownership Commission). It has also been published as Scottish Landowners and Heritages 1872/3 on CD from S&N Genealogy Supplies. This includes all those who owned more than 1 acre of land.

A primary source of land ownership can be found in Sasine registers. Many farmers leased land so they would not be in the sasine registers.
The sasine records are indexed from 1781 to 1868 and beyond. There are no indexes, either in Edinburgh or on-line, to Sasine Registers for Wigtownshire prior to 1781. The sasine registers to be aware of are the Particular Register for Wigtownshire and Burgh Registers of Sasines for the towns of Wigtown, Stranraer, and Whithorn. There is also a general register of sasine which was kept in Edinburgh. Sasine records are held at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The Archives at the Ewart Library holds the printed personal name index to the General Register of Sasines 1701-1720; person and place indexes to the Wigtownshire Particular Register of Sasines 1869-1971 (lacks 1965); the printed Abridgements to the Particular Register of Sasines for Wigtownshire 1781-1971 (lacks 1964, 1966-1970); and typewritten index to and extracts from the Particular Register of Sasines, 1st series, 1619-1627 (typed from a hand-written index and extracts in Reid: Calendar of Wigtownshire Sasines 1619-1627, Reid Collection v. 143).
The Archives at the Ewart Library also holds a manuscript copy of Wigtownshire Register of Sasines, 1620-1666, with index (Reid); and Summary Extracts from the Wigtownshire Register of Sasines, 1669-1711 (Reid).

Services of Heirs:

• The 3 volumes of abridgements of the Inquisitionum Ad Capellam Domini Regis Retornatarum, 1544-1699 (in Latin) are at Google Books. Vol. 1: Special Services, Aberdeenshire - Kirkcudbrightshire ; Vol. 2: Special Services, Lanarkshire - Wigtownshire; General Services; Retours of Tutory ; Vol. 3: Indexes by name and place.
• A CD of the Decennial Indexes, 1700-1859 (in English) is available from the Scottish Genealogy Society.

History of the Land and their Owners in Galloway, by P.H. M'Kerlie, 5 volumes, 1870s, provides information about land and its owners in every parish from the dark ages into the nineteenth century. Volumes 1 and 2 cover Wigtownshire. Many place names that are no longer on maps can be found in this work. There is a surname and place name index of this work online. Reprints, 1906, of the Wigtownshire volumes are at the Internet Archive.

Listed buildings (those listed for preservation) in Dumfries and Galloway.

Some estate papers can be found at the National Records of Scotland. Suggestions for searching will be found on the parish pages.

• Many land and property records are held at The National Archives of Scotland of which probably the main ones are the Registers of Sasines, recording the transfer of ownership of land.
• Registers of Scotland keep Scotland's National Land and Property Registers.
• Alan Stewart's book Gathering the Clans - Tracing Scottish Ancestry on the Internet has a very helpful section on land records.
• Retours of Services of Heirs (1544-1699) and Services of Heirs in Scotland (1700-1859) are now available on CD from the Scottish Genealogy Society. (These are new computerised versions of the long out of print standard reference works for inheritance of landed property in Scotland, from the 16th century to the mid 19th century. Not every inheritance was properly registered, sometimes the transfer was much more informal, but these indexes to surviving inheritance records are invaluable for genealogists researching Scottish landowners, big or small.)
• British Listed Buildings - an online database of buildings and structures that are listed as being of special architectural and historic interest.

• For English and Welsh records see PRO Leaflet: Tithe Records in the National Archives. Scottish records are held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.
• The University of Nottingham provides a detailed set of explanatory pages: Introduction to Deeds.
• Legal Terms in Land Records is a useful glossary of obscure terms which occur in property deeds.
• Robin Alston's Country House Database (archived copy) "represents a first attempt at listing country houses in the British Isles from the late medieval period to ca. 1850, together with an index to all the families so far traced as having occupied them".
• Estate Records held by Kings College, Cambridge.
• Disused Railway Stations website - a large and growing set of photographs of closed stations, with brief details of each station and a map showing its location.
• The Trace My House website provides extensive information and guidance for anyone wishing to investigate the history of a house and the people who lived in it.
• TNA's Research Guide on Houses - "Records relating to the history of houses are kept in a variety of archives. This guide will help you to find out where the information you are looking for might be, and how to go about finding it."
• British Listed Buildings - "an online database of buildings and structures that are listed as being of special architectural and historic interest".
• Researching Historic Buildings in the British Isles - a guide.