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 1617 to 1868 and beyond. The sasine registers to be aware of are the Particular Register for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and Burgh register of Sasine for the towns of New Galloway and Kirkcudbright. 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 and may be purchased from them. Search the indexes first to determine if these records exist for your ancestor. (See Bibliography #5 and #6.)

History of the Land and their Owners in Galloway, by P.H. M'Kerlie, provides information about land and its owners in every parish from the dark ages into the nineteenth century. Many place names that are no longer on maps can be found in this work. The Buittle Section is online. (See Bibliography #4.)

• 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.