Assessment Books
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City of Sydney Assessment Books 1845-1948
The Assessment Books record details of ownership, occupation, construction, and value for buildings in the City of Sydney between 1845 and 1948. They provide valuable information for family and property history which is not available from any other source.
Click here to go to the Assessment Books database.
Transcriptions from the original assessment books has been done by a volunteer team working in the City of Sydney Archives.
All the original assessment have now (June 2011) been transcribed and loaded in to the database except for 1925, 1927, 1932, 1933, 1936. These will be completed and added, in stages, by the end of 2012. For existing assessments already loaded, a few books that are missing could not be transcribed - for example the volume for Macquarie ward 1918 has been lost.
We have started to digitalise the original volumes and add the scanned images to the database. This will enable you to compare the data we have transcribed with the actual records. So far only about 20% of the books have been added. The rest will be scanned and added in stages by the end of 2012.
This new online database and search capability replaces the old static PDF files of Assessment Books. The sesarch capability means it is no longer necessary to know which Ward and / or Year to search, because if necessary you can search for a name across the whole City and the whole period covered by the books. Nevertheless, we recommend you take a few moments to read the Information Leaflet which gives background information about the records. You will find it located under the City Assessment Books tab when you open the database.
Comments about the Assessment Book project are welcomed. We would like to know your views about the usefulness of the project, how easy or difficult it was to use, whether you found what you were looking for, what enhancements you would like to see, and any other comments. Also please advise us of any transcription errors you identify so we can correct the data.
Click here to send a comment by email., and use the words Assessment Book Project Comment in the subject line.
All material is (c) Council of the City of Sydney 2005-2011. All rights reserved. If you wish to make use of any material accessible from this web page, beyond the scope of the personal use and fair dealing rules, please contact the City of Sydney Archives. For advanced social sciences research a dataset in XL:S format can be made available.
Last Updated: Wednesday 15 June, 2011