Scottish records of births, deeds/contracts, court cases etc will usually identify the person by his name and address. the prepositions "of", "in" and "at" are important pointers to further research pre -1855.
"of" means the person owns or holds a wadsett (redeemable mortgage) of the place.
"in" indicates that the person is tenant of that place
"at" means he lives there but is not owner or tenant ; could be a tradesman or a labourer
If the person is designed of someplace then the Scottish records may well hold much more information on them as the land register contained in the Sasines are very useful going back to an Act of Scottish Parliament of 1617 for each county to hold the records.Burghs also held their own records. Wadsetts are often included in the Register of Sasines. Deeds are more complex to trace but again county records are quite good. These are mainly held in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The "in" people pose a greater challenge as there is no central holding of tacks of farms so a researcher needs firstly to find who owned the land at that time (retours / Services of Heirs may help . Then one looks to see if the muniments of that owner family are held nationally, or in local archives or even at their estate office. Not an easy process but sometimes yielding a good payback.
Unfortunately the "at" people leave little evidence other than in baptism/birth records in OPR's , banns/marriages usually only mention the parish and death may give place but are somewhat scarce in OPR's.
