Schedule for the Scottish ViC January 25th 2020

All of the presentations for the Scottish ViC have now been recorded and I am thrilled with the level of learning that is being offered again this year. The Scottish ViC is unique in that it is the only virtual learning opportunity dedicated to Scottish genealogy/history. 

The day begins at 8 am with the first presentation at 8:30. We break at 12:30 for lunch and the day wraps up at 5 pm. Following the conclusion of each presentation, the presenter will be available live in a closed Facebook group to answer questions. 

Based on past experiences, it is a fast paced, information packed day. While it sounds like an eternity in front of a computer, you will actually wonder how the time passed so quickly. The day is always an inspiration to kick start those who have not researched in a while. It provides new and renewed energy for those who are "stuck" or stagnant in their Scottish research. And it is a fantastic way to start a new genealogical year. 

Here's the line up for the day: 

8:30        HISTORIAN STEPHEN MULLENS: GLASGOW AND THE SLAVE TRADE

                               

9:45        ARCHIVIST IRENE O’BRIEN: DEATH AND BURIAL

                               

10:50     AOIFE O’CONNOR: BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES

                               

11:45     GENEALOGIST EMMA MAXWELL: ASYLUM RECORDS

                               

12:30-1:15          

                               

1:15        ARCHIVIST MARGARET FOX: WILLS AND TESTAMENTS

                               

2:50       GENEALOGIST EMMA MAXWELL: PRISON RECORDS

                               

3:40        CHRISITNE WOODCOCK CANADA: LAND & OPPORTUNITY

5:00      WRAP UP

To register: https://www.genealogyvic.com/

Scottish Genealogy Research January 25, 2020

Scotland is where my story begins

Scotland is the home of my ancestors. I have a deep and abiding connection to them. There is a never-ending yearning to learn more of their story so that I can better understand my own.

To learn more about your Scottish ancestors, join us on Saturday, January 25th, 2020 for a day of virtual learning. Learn about record sets that contain information about the lives of your ancestors:

Death and burial, Wills and Testaments, Prison, Asylum, Emigration, Newspapers. For more details: https://www.genealogyvic.com/PRESENTERS

One low fee, seven presentations by six presenters. Access until February 25th to allow for time zone challenges. All from the comfort of home. No travel expense. No time away from family, friends, work or home. No accommodation expense. No meal expenses. Stay warm, stay in your jammies. Engage with others and learn from the best.

To register: https://www.genealogyvic.com/

Can't Find Your Ancestor's Death Information?

Have you hit a snag trying to find your Scottish ancestor's death record? Maybe it's because you aren't looking at the right records. 

Glasgow City Archivist, Irene O'Brien will show us a variety of records where you can find the information you are looking for when the standard records don't seem to be available. 

Join us for the Scottish ViC to learn about researching Scottish deaths and so much more. Seven presentations, six presenters to show you that your Scottish ancestors really are waiting for you to find them. 

Registration allows access to the presentations and downloadable handouts for one full month. https://www.genealogyvic.com/

SINGLE SPACE OPENS FOR EDINBURGH RESEARCH TOUR SEPT 2020

SEPT 13 - 19, 2020

The tour is scheduled for Sept 13 - 19th, 2020. Arrival will be on the Sunday and check out on the following Saturday.  This allows five full days of dedicated genealogy research.

The tour fees are $2545 canadian. This includes: 

• Pre-tour preparation and support
• Hotel and breakfast
• Three days at the ScotlandsPeople Centre/National Records of Scotland
• One full day at the National Library of Scotland
• One full day of research at the Scottish Genealogy Society. 

*each person is responsible for getting to and from Edinburgh on their own. Airfare and transport between the airport and hotel are not included.

​​***Non researching companions/spouses/family members sharing a room are welcome to join us for $500 Canadian. This includes their extra fee to the hotel. Non researchers do not count for available spaces so a single space DOES allow you to bring a companion. It is the research spaces that are limited.  
 

Walk where your ancetors walked. Worship where your ancestors worshipped. Visit your ancestors at their gravesides.

Find your Scottish ancestors waiting for you on the shelves of the archives, libraries and family history societies in Edinburgh

Gain a deeper sense of your story, your history and your place within the wider Scottish Diaspora. 

As with all spaces, this availability will go on a first come first served basis.  

https://www.genealogytoursofscotland.ca/edinburgh-sept-2020.html

Scottish Genealogy Virtual Conference - Mark the Date!

Genealogy Tours of Scotland announces their new venture, a virtual conference on Scottish Genealogy Research.

JANUARY 27^TH, 2018

The ViC (virtual conference) will launch on Saturday, January 27th, 2018 at 8 am Eastern with the opening of the marketplace where you can watch mini presentations by the vendors/exhibitors and learn about the value their product can add to your genealogy research.

The line-up of talks and speakers for the day:

Pre-Civil Registration Research, presented by genealogist Chris Paton

“Seek and Ye Shall Find” Using the Kirk's Archival Legacy to Unveil the Lives of Your Scottish Ancestors presented by archivist Margaret Fox

Researching Your Highland Ancestors, presented by genealogist Chris Halliday

Cleared to Canada: From the Highlands and Islands to Canada, presented by genealogy educator Christine Woodcock

Registration fee is just $79.99 (cdn) and allows unlimited access to the talks, handouts and marketplace for 72 hours. The live chat will only happen on January 27^th.

*** Virtual "Seats" are limited! Take advantage of the opportunity to pre-register:

http://www.genealogyvic.com/

NEW eCOURSE - SCOTTISH GENEALOGY BOOT CAMP

I have launched a new online course for Scottish genealogy learning. These eCourses use a combination of text and video to enhance your learning experience. 

BOOT CAMP is a three week, intensive learning course that covers:

• Getting Started
• Using the ScotlandsPeople's Website
• Legitimacy
• Scottish Marriages
• Scottish Naming Pattern
• Filling Your Scottish Genealogy Toolbox
• Digging Deeper
• Beyond ScotlandsPeople
• Brick Wall Busters
• Researching in Local Archives
• Resources at the National Archives of Scotland
• Resources at the National Library of Scotland
• Court Records
• Asylum Records
• Poor Law Records
• Preparing for a Genealogy Research Trip to Scotland

You do not need to have any prior experience researching Scottish ancestors, but should know what part of Scotland your ancestors were from. 

To register for this course, the Beginner's Course or the Digging Deeper course, visit the website at:

https://www.genealogytoursofscotland.ca/courses.html

Researching Scottish Inmate Ancestors Webinar on YouTube

A webinar held a couple of weeks ago on researching Scottish inmate ancestors, Criminals, Lunatics and Paupers, is now available on my YouTube channel. I have not monetized the channel so make no royalties or commission from any ads associated with the videos you view.

Here is the webinar:

Scottish Records Release on FindMyPast

FindMyPast has released some indexes for Scottish records which might be helpful to those researching Scottish ancestors

The first is Scotland Mental Health Institutions Admissions 1857-1859

and includes and index of admission records for over 50 Scottish mental health institutions including asylums and poorhouses between 1857 and 1859. These indices you will get:

• Name
• Age
• Birth year
• Birth place
• Occupation
• Former residence
• Place found
• Year
• Institution
• Institution county
• Patient identification number
• Archive
• Archive reference

The second is Scotland Prison Registers Index 1828-1884. Was your Scottish ancestor a criminal? The indices will give you: 

• First name(s)
• Last name
• Sex
• Age
• Birth year
• Birth county
• Birth country
• Occupation
• Residence
• Crime
• Prison
• Prison county
• Prison country
• Archive
• Archive reference

These are the same indices that are available through http://www.scottishindexes.com/

The index returns on Scottish Indexes

Family History Month - Lair Records

Few working people in Scotland could afford a headstone. And while there are a number of really good places to get monumental inscriptions, it may not be beneficial in your research if your ancestors couldn't, in fact, afford a headstone. This is where cemetery or lair records become important. A lair is essentially a plot. Often these lairs would hold between 6 & 12 people. 

Lair records provide valuable information such as the owner’s name and address, date of purchase, names and dates of the deceased, and the relationship to the owner. In addition to the name of the deceased and the name of the lair owner. you might also find additional charges for things like extra depth, carriage, dressing the lair, purchasing a new lair rather than opening an existing one and certificate fees. 

In 1925 responsibility for the maintenance of Church graveyards was transferred to local authorities (or councils) in Scotland and from then burial records were no longer the responsibility of the Church, so in order to access the lair records, you would need to contact  the local crematorium or local council archives where your ancestors was buried. 

Maps Marvelous Maps

Maps anchor us in time and place. Maps show us where we are going. Maps teach us about the world in which we live. 

From a genealogy perspective, maps help us to pinpoint where our ancestors lived. We can get a sense of the terrain as well as how rural or urban the area might have been. We can use maps to track how far our ancestors moved throughout their lives. Often we find that even thought they might have moved several times to get employment, they rarely left a small radius of 5 or 10 miles. 

The National Library of Scotland has over 2.5 million maps in their collections. And they have the best online collection of digital maps bar none. Their collections include estate maps, town plans and maps, military maps, county and country maps. 

Estate maps can show the farms your ancestors lived and worked on. We can see quarries, coal mines, forests, lochs, farm fields and location of the buildings belonging to the estate.

Town plans and maps show us how densely populated the town or village was and often will have labels on the buildings. These labels may determine the type of building, or they may be the name of the building's owner or proprietor. Military maps can show us the early roads leading to the area where your ancestor lived. 

Currently, the National Library of Scotland has an exhibit about Maps. It is a wonderful exhibit. 

Here is a preview:  

1580 map of Scotland (Scotiae tabula) by Abraham Ortelius

 1780 map of the City of Edinburgh by John Ainslie

East Lothian Poor Records Project

Monday night we had the opportunity to attend the meeting of the Scottish Genealogy Society. The speaker was Fran Woodrow, archivist at the John Gray Centre in East Lothian. Fran spoke about East Lothian's Poor.

Jim McQueen, president Abbotsford Genealogical Society, 
Fran Woodrow, Archivist, John Gray Centre,
Gregory Lauder-Frost, Chairman SGS

The purpose of poor relief was to suppress the nuisance of idle beggars in the parishes. Pre-1845 poor relief was the responsibility of the Kirk and the Heritors. There were different types of relief. These could include:

• Coal
• Food
• Money
• Clothing
• Medicine
• Poor House

The monies used for poor relief were raised through the Heritors, Endowments, Legacies, Fines and Fees, Mort Cloth Rentals

Post 1845, the responsibility for the poor was transferred to the Burghs and Councils through the passing of the Poor Law Act. The Act established parochial boards in the parishes and towns, and ensured a central Board o Supervision (based in Edinburgh) which had the ability to raise taxes in order to cover the poor relief payments.

From a genealogical perspective, information can be found in a variety of sources, such as:

• Parochial Board Minutes
• Poor Relief Rolls 
• Reports of Inspectors of the Poor -- list of paupers, soup kitchen rolls
• Burgh Accounts
• Friendly Societies
• Newspapers
• Kirk Session Records

East Lothian is in the process of digitizing their Poor Law Records. They have a bank of 20 very dedicated volunteers. The rolls are being digitized for viewing onsite in the John Gray Centre. They are also being transcribed for offsite research inquiries and there is an in-house team that are indexing the minute books.

If you have ancestors from East Lothian and are wondering if they might have been involved with a poor law application, you can contact Fran.

The staff at the John Gray Centre, can do a free 15 minute search to let you know whether there are records relating to your ancestor which might be worth accessing. Any further research will be at a rate of £25.25 per hour.

Best of luck with your East Lothian genealogy research!

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Institutional Archive

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Institutional Archive is now available to researchers

Collections include records of:

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

College Minutes and Chirurgians’ Business Papers

Financial Papers

Medical Education

Charity provision

Old Surgeons’ Hall and the Playfair Building

The Society of Barbers

The School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges

The Royal Odonto-Chirurgial Society and 

The Lothian Surgical Audit.

The archive is arranged into the following sections: 

• RCSEd 1 Legal, governance and related (1504-2001)
• RCSEd 2 Minutes, administration, organisation (1581-2013)
• RCSEd 3 Correspondence (1600-2008)
• RCSEd 4 Financial records (1533-2011)
• RCSEd 5 Medical and surgical education, training and practice (1653-2007)
• RCSEd 6 Examinations (1770-2010): Triple Qualification (1884-1996)
• RCSEd 7 Photographs: Photographs of Presidents, Fellows and other individuals (19th-20th century)
• RCSEd 8 Buildings and land (1665-2007)
• RCSEd 9 Records relating to the College Museum, Library and Archive (1763-2015): RCSEd 10 Records relating to the Faculty of Dental Surgery (1946-2000)
• RCSEd 11 Papers relating to the Surgical Hospital/Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (1729-1841)
• RCSEd 12 Events, celebrations and social (1800-2005)
• RCSEd 13 Conferences and symposia (1962-2001)

Digital images have been created and are in the process of being uploaded. Those uploaded are available through the catalogue, accessed here: 

Online Access to New Record Sets

Two incredibly detailed records for researching your Scottish ancestors are the Kirk Session records, a record of discipline meted out by the Kirk Elders for such things as swearing, breaking sabbath, drunkenness, pre-nuptial fornication, and anything else that fit into loose morals or un-Christian living. These records have all been digitized and will be coming online later this year via the ScotlandsPeople website. 

The other record set that provides a detailed view into the lives of our ancestors were the Poor Law records. And Stirling Archives has taken the lead on indexing their Poor Law records and making the indexes fully searchable and available online. This is an incredible accomplishment. While the records need to be viewed in person in the archives, you can at least check to see whether the records in fact exist for your ancestors in Stirling. 

Do You Have Orcadian Ancestors?

Ahead of this spring's Genealogy Tour of Scotland, I spent a few days in Orkney. What an incredible place! Phenomenal history, right back to Neolithic times. Of course, being a series of islands, much of Orkney's history is associated with the sea: Navy, whaling, fishing, ferrying, mastering the harbours. And of course there is the darker side to the sea: shipwrecks, piracy and drownings. 

Luckily for those of you with ancestral roots in Orkney, there are some amazing records to assist you with your research. 

Perhaps the best gem was finding the records that are available in the Stromness Museum. The archival information is amazing. They have records for men who were recruited to work in the HBC's inland factory at York, lists of men who were pressed into service with Peter's Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, lists of ferries, dingys and lifeboats and their workers and fate, men who served and fell in service for both world wars, the records of the Stromness Hearse Company, donated private collections, Orkney Shipwrecks, Pentland Firth Crossings that ran into trouble. 

Not to be outdone, the Orkney Library & Archive in Kirkwall also has a fantastic collection of archival records. Here you can find shipping registers, valuation and voters rolls, school records, police registers, newspapers, magazines, and a raft of personal papers left on deposit. You can view the whole listing here: 
http://www.orkneylibrary.org.uk/assets/OrkneyArchives%20Guide%2022Mar2013.pdf

Best of luck tracing your Orcadian ancestors!

New Record Release - Stirling District Asylum

The NHS archivists at the University of Stirling have been busy cataloguing the records from the Stirling District Asylum. This 50 volume collection offers a fascinating read into the lives of 

The Stirling District Asylum opened in 1869 and housed some 9000 patients between then and 1918. Many of the patients were paupers (likely a fallout of their mental illness) and one fascinating little detail is that the patients were photographed by staff. These may be the only photographs of the residents since many would not have had access to a camera prior to their institutionalization. 

The records provide a fascinating look into the lives and minds of the inpatients at this Victorian institution. 

The records are accessible to the public by visiting the Stirling University library. 

ScotlandsPeople Adds 1855 Valuation Rolls

We are starting to see more and more records coming online on the ScotlandsPeople website.

Today's release is the 1855 Valuation Rolls. This reflects the first year that valuation rolls were created, the same year that statutory registration began in Scotland. The website has valuation rolls in 10 year increments from 1855-1925. These provide a nice snapshot of where you ancestors were in between census years. They clarify whether the person listed was owner, occupier or tenant. It lists the proprietor of the property and then gives the yearly rent paid. 

To read more about the newest release: 
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/Content/Help/index.aspx?r=2349


The 1855 valuation rolls are free to search. The images are 2 credits to view. 

Scottish Institute Day Two Speaker Line-Up

The Scottish Institute will be held in Edinburgh and will offer a series of talks by experts in their respective genealogical fields

Tuesday October 20

Today's talks will take place at the West Lothian Room of the Lothian Chambers on the George IV Bridge. Here, we will hear from the following experts:

Richard Hunter, archivist at the Edinburgh City Archives will share information on the resources available at the City Archives as well as how these records can be accessed for genealogical research

Louise McCarron, Manager of Reader Services at the National Library of Scotland will discuss the holdings of the NLS and, in particular, the family history resources that are available for genealogical research. Focus will be given to the Maps, Newspapers and Trades and Post Office Directories

Following lunch on our own, we will hear from Louise Williams, archivist with the Lothian NHS. Louise's talk Finding Heritage in Health: Hospital Records for Genealogists

Andrew Nicholl, Development Manager at SCRAN will talk to us about the resources available through the ScotlandsPlaces website as well as the photographic collection available from the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and how these can enhance genealogical research and research reports.

Our day will end early to allow for some free time to enjoy this historic city.

Tuesday provides 5 hours of learning. 

The Scottish Institute is limited to 15 participants. This is a unique learning opportunity which will also allow time to make collaborative relationships through built in networking opportunities. 

To register:
http://www.scottishinstitute.ca/

For unanswered questions: genealogytoursofscotland@gmail.com
 

 

 

Poll Tax Records Digitized

ScotlandsPlaces has added 88 new newly digitized volumes of Poll Taxes for the years 1694-1698.

http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/news/poll-tax-1694-1698

More records are being promised shortly, so stay tuned for updates. 

1925 Valuation Rolls Go Online

1925 Valuation Rolls have just been launched on the ScotlandsPeople Website. They are FREE to search! Here's the link:

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

National Library of Scotland Honour Rolls

The National Library of Scotland has digitized and made freely available online, their collection of honour rolls for WWI. These records are indexed alphabetically by either place or organization. The rolls contain names of casualties and those who fell in active duty.

The rolls are a collection from organizations such as schools, universities, clans, businesses and churches from across Scotland.

Here's the link:

http://digital.nls.uk/rolls-of-honour/pageturner.cfm?id=100847906