The General's Musings: Genealogy: Tracing your family heritage

IT IS ironic that the more dispersed and disassociated from family and home we become, the greater appears to be our need to know who we are and where we come from. Genealogy is becoming more and more popular as a leisure-time pursuit, as people dig deep in their search for ancestors.

The good news is that tracing your roots is now a real possibility. The computerisation of records and the ease of Internet access mean that it is now much easier to search family background. You will need a bit of help, a lot of time and a smidgen of luck, but it's well worth the effort.

Before dipping your toes in your family's gene pool and venturing into the stormy water that is genealogical research you need to break down your search into five potential areas:

Yourself and family sources

Starting out can be daunting, but in this great information treasure hunt you already hold the first clue: Dig out your birth certificate. Most certificates will include your parents' names, place of birth and occupation, date and place of parents' marriage. Your birth certificate should lead to your parents' marriage certificate, which will give you the name and occupation of your grandparents. This will help lead to your grandparents' death certificate, which will give you their address at the time of death and the name and occupation of your great-grandparents.

Family history

Talk to your oldest living relatives and ask them about what they know. Jot down any family stories. Some of what they tell you could be nonsense, but hidden in the half-truths there could be information that will help in your search.

Look through the family bible.

People often noted down important dates on the fly-cover of the family bible. Old memorial cards and other interesting family records may also be tucked inside.

Do you already have a family tree? If so, then use it, but remember that it may not be accurate. If you don't already have a family tree, then you will need to construct one and note down all relatives as you find them.

Family documentation.

Collect everything that you can. Useful sources include: old school reports, apprenticeship papers, graduation papers, society/club membership papers, pension books, diaries, military service records, scrapbooks, letters, newspaper cuttings, trade union cards and photo albums

Official Records

In Scotland, the main public bodies that you need to help in a search are based in Edinburgh. You may also benefit from visiting towns and villages connected with your family. If this is not an option, then don't lose heart, there is plenty of scope to search on the internet, and there are a number of organisations who you can pay to trace your roots.

If you do manage to visit in person, bear in mind that you will be charged for searching and accessing documents, so you need to know what you are looking for before you set out.

New Register House, 3 West Register Street, Edinburgh

They hold a number of records, including:

Old Parish Registers (OPRs). These are records of baptisms, proclamations of banns, marriages and burials before 1854 and were created by the Church of Scotland. Be warned: they are not comprehensive.
Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates. These replaced the OPRs in 1855 and are more complete.
Census. A census is held every ten years and started in 1841. It records who was in every household on the night the census was taken, the person's occupation and some general background.
Army, Navy and Air Force records.
Monumental inscriptions.
Miscellaneous records.

See the New Register House website for opening hours and cost.

The National Archives of Scotland, General Register House, Princes Street, Edinburgh

Also known as General Register House, these offices hold documents not found in New Register House including:

Church Records (CH). This comprises records of births, marriages and deaths and other information from churches not represented in the OPRs, including the Roman Catholic Church, Free Church of Scotland, Episcopalian and Methodist churches.
Testament and Wills. These comprise wills and testaments confirmed in Scotland back to the 16th Century.
Property Records. The Register of Sasines record transactions in land and property going back in some cases to the early 17th century.
Various Tax Records. This can include poll tax, hearth tax and assessed tax records.
Various legal records. Including contracts and deeds and company accounts.
Business and Other records. Records from nationalised industries such as railways (including personnel records) and coalmining (excluding personnel records).

The website is: www.nas.gov.uk.

Emigration

If you are one of the reported 40 million people worldwide with Scots ancestry, then tracing your lineage has an added dimension. To search you really need the names of your Scottish ancestors, where they came from in Scotland, when they emigrated and where they lived when they arrived. Find out the name of the ship they travelled on and the departure and arrival port.

Shipping Lists

If you have a departure and/or arrival port and the name of the vessel your ancestor travelled in, you can then search the shipping lists held in your country for details of your ancestor, their age, who they travelled with, and where they were from. Some shipping lists are on the web but others are published in books. Ships passenger lists fopr ships sailing from British ports from 1894 onwards are held by The National Archives in Kew.
www.thenationalarchives.gov.uk

The Highland Emigration Society and the Board of Relief in Highland Destitution

There were a number of funded schemes set up to help people in Scotland who wished to emigrate. The National Archives of Scotland hold records of the small number of people who travelled under these schemes. There is a searchable database of these records on the Scottish Archives Network website.
www.scan.org.uk

Clan Societies

There are numerous clan societies on the web, most of which have an international branch that can help you. The site listed below has links to Clan societies, but if in doubt, just search your clan surname on the web and see where it takes you.
http://clan-maccallum-malcolm.3acres.org

Historical Societies

Again, if you know where your ancestor first landed then you could try the internet to see if the town or city has an historical society.

If you can visit the village your ancestors came from, then you have greater access to individual church records, gravestones, and information at the local library.

Surnames

You now have a number of tools to start you on your quest. But before you rush off and lose yourself in the distant past, here are a few words of warning about names.

First Names

When it came to recording any information, your ancestors would have told it to an enumerator who wrote it down in the official documentation. At times these men had difficulty making out accents, and some of their spellings were exotic, to say the least. You may know your great-grandmother's name was Isabella, but don't be put off if you come across an Eselbaua in an official form. It could be that the enumerator couldn't spell or that is what he thought your great granny's name really was.

To Mc or Mac?

The simple answer is do both. Your surname may be Macdonald, but if you are not getting the results you were expecting try Mcdonald. And while you're at it, you may as well try MacDonald, McDonald and any other spelling you think is possible.

Patronymics

Most people know that "Mac" or "Mc" is the Gaelic form for "son of", so it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that just because you're a MacArthur that means that you all ultimately derive from some mythical "Arthur". But Scottish patronymics are not as straightforward as that. It was only under the clan system that whole families began to take the same surname, and initially people took the surname of the chief; it did not mean that they were related, simply affiliated in some way.

Initially patronymics followed a different system whereby names evolved from father's names. So John Robert would have a child called Donald Robertson, who would have a child called Andrew Donaldson who would have a child called Peter Anderson and so on. Which means you ought not to discard a surname if it doesn't tally with yours.

The Internet

There are now many ways to access information on the net. Below is a sample of some sites you may find helpful.

Scotsman Digital Archive
The Scotsman has been digitally archived from 1817 to 1950. This gives a copy of all births, deaths and marriages listed in the paper and would also help source a story.
General Register Office for Scotland
This is the official government source of genealogical data for Scotland. You need to pay £6 per 30 pages viewed, and can access documents. It also gives advice on starting out your investigation.
The National Library of Scotland
Information on books which could help you research, and also fill in details of what life was like when you have tracked down your ancestors' location. The NLS also holds the Electoral Register - or voter rolls - that shows who was registered to vote from 1856.
Gen UK and Ireland
This is an independent portal that will get you to a number of other sites, which holds a wealth of information, including web addresses, bibliography and tutorials on tracing your roots.
The Scottish Genealogy Society
The society was established to help people locate ancestors. They hold copies of many government records and also have a large library. You can buy information online, including books, census data and lists of emigrant ship passengers.
Scottish Archive Network
This site contains a number of items of use to family historians including a searchable index to the records of the Highland Emigration Society and the Board of Relief in Highland Destitution.
Scottish Handwriting
This site contains help on all aspects of interpreting older Scottish handwiring and the language used in Scottish documents.
Family Search
The Mormons have compiled a free database with more than 600 million names on their International Genealogy Index. They hold copies on many church records, military documents and shipping lists.
Co Leis Thu?
From the Gaelic phrase "Who do you belong to?", Cu Leis Thu? has carried out research across the Western Isles and banked more than 30,000 family tree sheets together with lists of families who emigrated to North America, Australia and elsewhere.

So there you have it. You're well on your way, but just one last tip before you set off. In your search for your ancestral roots, you would do well to follow the four important genealogy rules:

Do not rush. It will take time to thoroughly trawl documents. Hurry and you might miss something.
Be methodical. Note down everything that you come across. You never know what will prove to be important later on in your search.
Be patient. You may be lucky and get a quick result, but usually it is perseverance that wins out in the genealogy game.
Don't trust everything you read. Treat the information you find with caution, especially if you've used the Internet. Try and corroborate if you can.

Web links

Related topic

Genealogy
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1325

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1325&id=41402005

Last updated: 02-May-06 14:53 GMT

The General's Musings

Thursday, 8 February 2007

Genealogy: Tracing your family heritage