Genealogical resources & hints

It's a cert!

If there's one bit of family history information that almost everyone has, it is birth, marriage & death certificates. Yet most people have little understanding of the meaning of the various pieces of information recorded there, particularly on older certificates.

A case study in problem solving in Scottish genealogy.

THERE'S ALWAYS ONE LINE THAT IS TROUBLE....

Library & Archive Sources in Scotland

 

Do It Yourself - Where to start and other general information.

We have received enquiries of a specific nature, so Gordon has pulled together a basic reading list and some sources that could help you do some investigative work for yourself. This will save you some money, and give you good data to present to an investigator. Most enquiries naturally relate to Scottish families, so we have concentrated on that. Basic advice first.

Hints & Tips - Home Sources.

There is more historical information in the hands of your living relatives than you might think. Here is a selected list of documents, etc. that you could try to get hold of or get copies of:

Hints & Tips - Addresses.

Collect family addresses, with dates.

Hints & Tips - Photographs.

Identify people in the family photo albums, and look for loose photos as well.

Hints & Tips - Clans

People all over the world assume that all Scots have clans and tartans. This is not so. Many Scottish family names have no clear association with a clan or even a sept (branch of a larger clan). Clans were mostly associated with the Highlands and the borders with England, with the central belt and the east coast being almost free of clans - though they had prominent landowning families that controlled large areas.

Hints & Tips - Spellings

Surnames can be a source of worry when you go back in time, and cannot find your relative with the correct surname. You have to realise that even as late as the latter part of last century, many people could not write, even sign their own name. As a result, when their name had to be written down in documents, the person writing the name used a spelling that they assumed would be acceptable, often based on how the name sounded. People with the same surname, but from different localities with varying dialects and intonations, could have completely different spellings of the same name in official records!

Hints & Tips - Archives & Libraries

In the course of writing to sources for genealogical information, or even for local history material to act as family background, there are certain ways you can increase your chances of getting a good reply quickly.

Hints & Tips - Newspapers

Newspapers have been around for much longer than most people realise, even in what you may think of as "the rural areas".

Hints & Tips - Books to help

You are bound to have said to yourself at some time or other - surely there is a book that will give me most of the answers I need for my own family? Something that will be a shortcut to the long slog of searching for all the ancestors?

Specialist Searchers - P.R.O., Kew: military, royal and merchant navy, etc.

 

Census Records in the U.K. - an overview

copyright by Gordon Johnson <gordon@kinhelp.co.uk>. UK Census enumeration did not start on an official government basis until the year 1801, the year of the first census of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Prior to that, there are many instances of local censuses of various kinds – lists of local inhabitants, church communion rolls and catechism lists, taxation lists, and so on. Many listings did not include children, and some were head of households only, so the comprehensive coverage of the UK censuses is a great boon.

Your ancestor was a Scottish clergyman

Published sources for Scottish clergymen described and assessed

The Church and the Truth?

An example of the difference between what is perceived as the truth, and what it actually turns out to be!