Category Archives: Research

The show of the year

Posted on by
Reply

The display stand has been checked, flyers counted, train tickets bought, flights booked and hotel rooms reserved… all in aid of the UK’s largest genealogy show.

Yes it’s time for Who Do You Think You Are? Live! which takes place this weekend from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 February 2012 in London’s Olympia.

There will be plenty to see and do over the three days:

  • exhibitors from all the major online companies, libraries, museums and dozens of family history societies from across the UK;
  • photo-dating experts;
  • displays relating to long lost occupations and the daily life of workers from postal workers to nurses, agricultural workers and more;
  • specialists from a host of military museums to help you with your military queries;
  • celebrities Larry Lamb, Emilia Fox and Richard Madeley from the WDYTYA TV series talking about their experiences filming the show;
  • The Society of Genealogists’ ‘Ask the Experts’ area provides an opportunity to get some one-to-one guidance on your family history research.

In addition there’s a full programme of talks and workshops over the three days.

There are some new features in this year’s show:

  • a keynote workshop entitled Breaking the Barriers with Social Networking – Strategies and Tricks.  The speaker will be  Laurence Harris, Head of Genealogy (UK) at MyHeritage.com followed by a Q&A session with invited panellists D. Joshua Taylor, Lisa Louise Cooke, Peter Christian, Paul Howes and Daniel Lynch
  • meet your favourite bloggers and tweeters who’ll be wearing rosettes sponsored by the Society of Genealogists
  • live broadcast talks from the show on Friday and Saturday:
    • Friday 24th February 2012
      • 10:30 – 11:15 GMT: First steps: Build your family tree with censuses and birth, marriage and death records
      • 13:30 – 14:45 GMT: Ancestry.co.uk revealed: the brand new features in the best-selling family history software
      • 15:30 – 16:15 GMT: Before 1837 by TONY ROBINSON: Discover the events that shaped your ancestors’ lives, and the records they left behind.
    • Saturday 25th February 2012
      • 11:00 – 11:45 GMT: Going further: Discover your ancestors all over the world with our global records
      • 13:00 – 13:45 GMT: Parish records: Uncover the records for your area and trace your family all the way back to Tudor times
      • 15:00 – 15:45 GMT: Getting started: Build your family tree with censuses and birth, marriage and death records

Find out how to view the live broadcasts on the Ancestry blog at http://blogs.ancestry.com/uk/2012/02/16/tony-robinson-others-to-be-broadcast-live-from-who-do-youthink-you-arelive-to-our-facebook-page/

If you’re a National Institute for Genealogical Studies student come and meet Managing Director Louise St Denis, Director of Scottish Studies Sheena Tait (that’s me!) and Director of English Studies Kirsty Grey.  Louise and I will be on stand 87/88 all weekend, Kirsty (who also works full-time as a teacher) will be there on Saturday and Sunday.

With all this going on you can’t afford to miss it.

See you there!

Sheena

Fisher folk and fisher lassies

Posted on by
2

St Monans - a typical Fife fishing village

St Monans - a typical Fife fishing village

Herring has always formed an important part of Scotland’s economy and many of us have both male and female ancestors who were part of the herring trade.

What became known as the “Scotch cure” was reputedly invented by a Dutchman at the end of the 14th century and involved gutting and removing the gills of the fish which were then packed “sardine fashion” in barrels, their tails towards the centre, with a layer of salt between each layer of fish.

Herring is a seasonal fish and many fishermen tried to extend the season by following the shoals from the east coast of Scotland in winter and spring, to the west coast in early summer, round the Shetlands in mid-summer, down the north-east coast in late summer through autumn and ending up in England off the coast of East Anglia in December.

Uniquely to the Scottish herring trade, armies of young girls followed the fishing fleet to provide the seasonal labour needed to deal with the catches.

By the middle of the 19th century the major commercial markets were overseas in Germany, Poland and Russia; in Scotland herring (“silver darlings”) was regarded as a poor man’s food.

To find out more about the herring trade, try some of these links:

Modern fishing boats being repaired in Gamrie, Banffshire

Modern fishing boats being repaired in Gamrie, Banffshire

Sheena

Fur trappers and traders

Posted on by
1

Hudson Bay Canoes at Chats falls 1838

Hudson Bay Canoes at Chats falls 1838: Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-47-18

John D Reid over at the Anglo-Celtic Connections blog has just noted that the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBCA) has created and uploaded biographical sheets on people who were employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company and/or the North West Company at http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical/.

A large proportion of the company’s staff was Scots, whether emigrants or temporary seasonal migrants, especially from the Orkneys and Hebrides.  The biographical sheets outline:

the person’s employment history and may also include the parish of origin or place of birth; positions, posts and districts in which the person served; family information, if available; and references to related documents, including photographs or drawings.

The Hudson’s Bay Company was founded in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay. The original charter gave the company a monopoly of the fur trade in the 1.5 million square miles of land which drains into the Hudson Bay.

The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives is part of the Archives of Manitoba and is online at http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/index.html.  The Hudson’s Bay Company also has a dedicated heritage section on its website at http://www.hbc.com/hbcheritage/.

If you want to find out more about Scots in the Canadian fur trade, the the University of Aberdeen has a dedicated micro-site at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/materialhistories/index.php and Learning and Teaching Scotland explores the history of Scots emigration to Canada at http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/scotsandcanada/index.asp.  And don’t forget Library and Archives Canada who have their own dedicated genealogy and family history section.

Sheena

Engineer in the family?

Posted on by
Reply

I’m married to an engineer, my father was an engineer and my past job in the Civil Service could be described as engineering so this news item from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London definitely caught my eye:

A chip off the old block? Engineering Your Family History open day

The Institution’s archive is a rich source of information on engineering professionals since the 1840s, and has increasingly been sought out by both members and the general public as they look to find out about their family history.

To address this growing interest, on 23 September 2010, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology archives are holding a joint open day for family historians. The event will be held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and will offer a rare opportunity to talk with the professional custodians of the three archives and to see the stunning Elizabethan-style library, designed by Basil Slade in 1899.

The programme includes short talks on researching engineering ancestors, the international history of engineering, technical education and engineering in wartime.

To find out more, go to http://www.imeche.org/news/archives/10-08-31/A_chip_off_the_old_block_Engineering_Your_Family_History_open_day.aspx on the Institution’s website.

Thanks to my husband for pointing this out to me.

Now all I’ve got to do is convince next week’s visitor that she’s happy to be abandoned for the day so that I can go myself!

Sheena

Lothians ancestors?

Posted on by
2

Back in December I posted a comment about discovering various Scottish Registers of Aliens, especially those held by Edinburgh City Archives.  Well now you can view images from some of these registers courtesy of the LothianLives blog.

Lothianlives features images and stories from the records held by the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian archives.  If you’ve got ancestors from the Lothians, head over to http://lothianlives.org.uk to read about everything from the Edinburgh police to life in the New Town of Livingston via the German invasion of the Belgian village of Tildonk in 1914.

Thanks to Frances Woodrow over at http://ascottishaccent.blogspot.com/ for the news of this new resource.

Sheena


Did you know Scotland had its own Test Act?

Posted on by
2
I was browsing the Dumfries Kirk Session Minutes indexed online at http://www.dgcommunity.net/historicalindexes/default.aspx recently and came across several merchants in August 1689 who were being appointed as deacon and elders either regretting that they had taken “the Test” or saying that they had not taken “the Test”.
Now maybe there’s a massive gap in my knowledge, but I’d always thought that the Test Acts only applied in England and Wales so I’ve been doing some digging.  (By the way the 1911Encyclopedia at http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Test_Acts is better than Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Act for this.)

After the Restoration, in 1662  Charles II re-introduced Episcopalianism to Scotland under the “Act for the restitution and reestablishment of the ancient government of the church by archbishops and bishops” (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1662/5/9).  The Test Act in England and Wales was passed in 1672.  There doesn’t seem to have been a similar Act in Scotland until 1681 when the “Act Anent Religion and the Test” was passed (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1681/7/29)

The Dumfries Kirk Session indexes only start in 1689 so I don’t know if this Test Act was causing a problem before then.  William and Mary accepted the Scottish Crown on 11 May 1689, just before these Dumfries merchants were being ordained as elders and deacons.  However given that the act applied to “all magistrates, deans of guild, councillors and clerks of burghs royal and regality, all deacons of trades and deacon-conveners in the said burghs” the merchants could have been in an embarrasing position.
The Scottish Test Act was repealed in June 1690 by the “Act ratifying the Confession of Faith and settling presbyterian church government” (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1690/4/45)
The National Archives of Scotland appear to have various listings in their online catalogue at http://www.nas.gov.uk/onlineCatalogue/ :
  • Aberdeen Test – subscribed by the barons PA7/25/2
  • Caithness Test  - signed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/8
  • Clackmannan Test – signed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/9
  • Dumfries (Stewartry of Annandale)  - Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/11
  • Dunbarton  - Test subscribed by freeholders PA7/25/12
  • Edinburgh – Test subscribed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/13
  • Fife – Test subscribed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/14
  • Forfar – Test subscribed by the barons PA7/25/15
  • Inverness – Test signed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/17
  • Kincardine – Test subscribed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/18
  • Kirkcudbright – Certificate by the clerk of the stewartry that the freeholders have taken the Test PA7/25/20
  • Lanark – Test subscribed by the electors PA7/25/21
  • Moray (Elgin and Forres) – Test subscribed by the barons etc PA7/25/23
  • Nairn – Test subscribed by the electors PA7/25/24
  • Peebles – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/26
  • Perth – Test subscribed by the small barons and freeholders PA7/25/27
  • Renfrew – Test subscribed by the freeholders and depute sheriff-clerk PA7/25/28
  • Ross – Extract Test subscribed by the barons, freeholders and feuars PA7/25/29
  • Roxburgh – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/30
  • Selkirk – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/31
  • Sutherland – Test subscribed by the heritors PA7/25/33
All of these tests appear to have been signed in 1685.
My brain hurts now!
Sheena

The Scottish Distributed Digital Library

Posted on by
2

I’ve just come across the Scottish Distributed Digital Library: a collection of links to digitised sounds, images and texts with Scottish themes on the internet.

The collection includes books, photographs, paintings, drawings and websites covering such diverse subjects as

  • Aberdeen-built ships
  • Ayrshire working lives photographs
  • Hand drawn maps of Cawdor parish dating from 1782
  • The Dictionary of Scottish Architects
  • Architectural plans and drawings
  • Photographs of Glasgow people and places
  • More maps than you can shake a stick at

and much much more!

Go and have a look at http://scone.strath.ac.uk/sddl/index.cfm – I’m sure you’ll find something relevant to your own family history.

Sheena

How many generations back can you trace?

Posted on by
1

1975 Golden Wedding celebration for Marcus Calder Campbell & Janet Russell Dickson

There’s been a discussion lately on one of the American genealogy blogs about how feasible it is to trace back through 10 generations of family history.

Leaving aside any arguments about “name hunting” as opposed to documenting a family’s history I thought it would be an interesting exercise to check the number of generations I’d traced for my own family.

My father’s ancestry is all Scottish, from the central belt of the country and on his side I can trace:

  • Generations 1-4: 15 out of 15 possible names (all of his great grandparents)
  • Generation 5: 16 out of 16 possible names (all of his great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 6: 15 out of 32 possible names (46% of his great-great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 7: 4 out of 64 possible names (6% of his 4x great grandparents)

and that’s it.

My mother’s family is all Scottish again but spreads across the borders, the Lothians and Caithness. On her side I can trace:

  • Generations 1-4: 15 out of 15 possible names (all of her great grandparents)
  • Generation 5: 16 out of 16 possible names (all of her great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 6: 12 out of 32 possible names (37% of her great-great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 7: 8 out of 64 possible names (12% of her 4x great grandparents)

and that’s it.

So what?

Well, it’s one way of stepping back and viewing the wood rather than the individual trees and leaves we normally concentrate on.

All but three of my Caithness ancestors are from the parishes of Halkirk and Bower where the Old Parish Registers don’t exist before 1780 – it’ll take a lot of luck and hunting in tenancy agreements held in Edinburgh to take them back any further.

I can see some ancestors who died post-1855 (the introduction of civil registration in Scotland) where the name of one parent is missing. I need to check that I’ve got the relevant certificates. If they died in an institution, I need to find out if those records survive and check to see if they contain further details.

and so on.

It’s been a useful exercise. I can see which families will need more research at archives in Scotland the next time I can grab a chance. I can also see families where more work with online sources, or in The National Archives at Kew, could bring results.

Have you ever stepped back to get an overview of your research?

How did you do it?

WDYTYA – New data launches

Posted on by
2

Just got back from the first day of WDYTYA at Olympia and I’m shattered so this is just a quick post to let you know about two new data products launched today.

  • The Federation of Family History Societies has launched Version 3 of their National Burial Index for England and Wales.  This new edition includes the data from the first and second editions plus a further 5 million entries to bring the total to over 18 million records.  9,100 burial locations in 50 counties are indexed.
  • Ancestry has launched the Alien Arrivals and Alien Entry Books for the UK.
    • The Alien Entry Books cover correspondence and other documents from the Home Office and the Aliens Office for 1794-1921 the originals of which are held in Class HO5 at The National Archives.  There are un-indexed, you simply browse through the images.
    • The Alien Arrivals records have been indexed or you can browse them by port of entry.  They cover the periods 1810-1811 and 1826-1869 and are digitised from Classes FO 83/21-22: Lists of aliens arriving at English ports, August 1810-May 1811; HO 2: Certificates of alien arrivals, 1836-1852; HO 3: Returns of alien passengers, July 1836-December 1869 and CUST 102/393-396 Accounts of aliens arriving at London (July-November 1826) and Gravesend (October 1826-August 1837) from The National Archives.  You should be able to find the alien’s name, age, profession and country of origin together with their port and date of arrival, and where they exist, certificate number.

Have fun!

Sheena