Family History Guide

Things to bear in mind

If you are just starting to research your family tree, you may encounter some unexpected difficulties or misconceptions. Here are some. 

Timescale

Family history is not a quick process. Behind each interesting story in family history television programmes are many months of detailed research. You can develop the same skills, but do not expect to produce an accurate family tree with a couple of hours’ work on the Web or with one visit to an archive. Some genealogists spend decades exhausting all the sources of information about their ancestors, others spend a couple of weeks’ vacation researching several lines of the family tree. 

Hitting the wall at 1800 

Birth, marriage and death records before 1800 generally contain less information than later records. That is why most researchers find it much more difficult to verify that they have found the correct records for their ancestors before about 1800. You can try searching other sources, but you may have to accept that you cannot go further back. Instead, you might like to widen your search to include different family lines, or you can explore what your known ancestor’s lives were like. 

Clans and tartans 

Many people are inspired to begin tracing Scottish ancestry by their desire to belong to a ‘clan’ – as portrayed in film and folklore. However, the idea that a clan consists of everyone with the same Scottish surname, entitled to wear the same tartan, is a modern one. The development of this popular image of clans and tartans is itself part of our national history; and it was summarised in C. Withers, ‘The Historical Creation of the Scottish Highlands’, a chapter in Ian Donnachie and Christopher A. Whatley, eds., The Manufacture of Scottish History (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1992). A full definition of clan society can be found in A. I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1996); and the disintegration of clan society and the subsequent development of Highland society is discussed in several chapters of T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation 1700-2000 (London: Penguin 2006). The Scottish Tartan Register also provides brief guidance on tartans: https://tartanregister.gov.uk/FAQ 

Family stories 

Family traditions of what ancestors did and who they were related to sometimes turn out to be exaggerations, while others are simply impossible to verify from historical records, even although they may have a basis in fact. Approach family history with an open mind and be prepared for the possibility that family traditions may be exposed as myths. 

Emigration records emigrate 

Do not expect to find centrally or locally held records of emigrants in Scotland itself. Passenger lists invariably went with the passengers and ended up in the country of arrival (although The National Archives in London holds passenger lists from 1890 onwards for British ports). Further information about emigration from Scotland is available in the Knowledge Base. 

Parishes and counties 

Acquiring some knowledge of the history of Scottish administration is very useful. Many of the records you will use are arranged by county and/or parish name, so it helps to know which county or parish your ancestors lived in. The ScotlandsPeople website offers comprehensive indexes of personal names, but these are linked to the parish and county that the birth, marriage, death or census record came from. During most of the 19th and 20th centuries there were 33 counties and over 900 parishes. 

For more information, see: Parishes and districts | ScotlandsPeople

National Library of Scotland Guide: History of parishes – County and Parishes viewer – National Library of Scotland (nls.uk)

Scotland’s Places guide: What’s the difference between counties, parishes, burghs, regions and districts? | ScotlandsPlaces

Digging for graves 

Finding where a burial took place is hard, especially before municipal cemeteries were established in the second half of the 19th century. Expect to be frustrated in many cases when trying to find where the remains of an ancestor now repose. Many graves were unmarked and older burial grounds may have long since been built over. A free website which relies on contributions of photographs from individuals is Find A Grave https://www.findagrave.com/. One subscription website which contains photographs and transcriptions is https://billiongraves.com/. There are also published and unpublished transcriptions of monumental inscriptions available from the Scottish Association of Family History Societies. 

Adding context to your family tree

Registration and census records are the starting point but not the end of family history research. You can use records to find out more about what your ancestor did and about the place that they lived. To do that, you may enjoy developing some new skills. 

Occupations 

You will find the last occupation of an individual on their death registration and even if you cannot find any detailed employment records, you can still explore the kind of work that someone with that occupation did. 

First, you might need to work out what the occupation was. There are several free online dictionaries of occupations and trades such as https://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/glossary/Dictionary-of-Old-Occupations-Index.html For Scots words use the Dictionaries of the Scots Language. https://dsl.ac.uk/  

Then try finding out whether the occupation was unusual or whether lots of people in the area had the same or similar occupations. Local history societies and community heritage groups are a tremendous source of information about what people did in their local area. They will know, for example, if there were lots of nailers in one area and where they worked, or whether there were only a couple of clock-making businesses in their town. They may publish a journal with articles about the history of the main industries in the area or they may have a website. 

If your ancestor worked in a big, industrial occupation, it is unlikely that you will find records that mention them by name, but you can find out more about what they did from local museums as well as archives. For example, Falkirk Museums has examples of patterns made by ironfounding pattern makers: https://collections.falkirk.gov.uk/explore. Other local museums will have objects from local employment, whether that is industry or agriculture or shipbuilding or a multitude of small and large businesses. 

If you have a good idea of where your ancestor worked, try finding out about it. They may have advertised in old newspapers or in the programmes of local bazaars. You might also find newspaper articles mentioning them. The local archives might hold their records and these may include product catalogues, accounts, minutes of the board of directors or other records that tell you what they did and who they traded with.  

Places 

If you have the name of a place but don’t know where it is, start with ScotlandsPlaces. This website lets you search for a place by name, including older placenames where the settlements themselves may have disappeared. It has links to other gazetteers and has many digitised records where the place you are looking for may be mentioned. 

The National Library of Scotland has a large number of historic maps available online: National Library of Scotland – Map Images (nls.uk)

Once you have identified the location, have a look at a modern map which will show which modern council area it is now in. This will help you identify which local archives service to contact and help you look for the appropriate local history society or community heritage group or community archives. 

Clubs, groups and hobbies

Throughout the nineteenth century, many more people belonged to local societies, clubs and associations relating to their church, place of work, local area or hobbies. If your ancestor was active in their local church community, for example, you may find their name mentioned in church group minutes, or through their participation in church charitable committees. Many charities in through the nineteenth and early twentieth century published regular magazines, which gave lists of donors and published letters from supporters, which may offer another source giving details about your ancestor.

Many of the records available in local archives or specialist archives can help you find out more about your ancestors or about the places they lived in and how they lived their lives. You can use My Ancestor and the Knowledge Base to find out about the contents of different record types and how these might help you develop your family history interests.  

Finding your ancestor in the records

Once you have discovered some basic facts about your family tree, these can indicate other collections of historic records which may give additional information on your family’s history. Depending on what your ancestors did for a living, whether they emigrated or how they travelled, further avenues for investigation may be open to you.

You can find detailed information on where to find records for emigrants and transported Scots, to Islanders and school pupils in our guide to finding your ancestor.

Finding and understanding records

Tracking down archives

The information in different records makes more sense when you know why the records were created in the first place. The topics section in the Knowledge Base contains some short articles which explain this background detail – who was responsible for administering a topic and what they were supposed to do. Legislation is a really important factor in determining whether records were created, by whom and what information they had to contain. You will find references to relevant legislation in each topic article and you can see this online either through https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ or https://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/british-and-irish/chronological/  

Reading old handwriting

You may need to develop some skills in reading old handwriting (palaeography).

It can be daunting at first but there is help on the Scottish Handwriting website https://www.scottishhandwriting.com/  

Understanding older papers

Language has changed significantly over time. For help in understanding terms found in old records, you can use the Your Scottish Archives Glossary. Another useful resource is the Dictionary of Scots Language. Within the Knowledge Base you can also find guidance on historic weights, measures, volumes and distances.

Further links to helpful resources for learning to read and understand archival records can be found here.

Finding archives in Scotland

There are many helpful written guides, societies and even professional genealogists which may be able to help you in your research. Here are a few suggestions:

Read a book 

There are many published guides to researching Scottish ancestry in print. We recommend: 

National Records of Scotland Tracing your Scottish ancestors: a guide to ancestry research in the National Archives of Scotland (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2020) 

Bigwood, Rosemary The Scottish family tree detective. Tracing your ancestors in Scotland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006) 

Durie, Bruce Scottish genealogy (Stroud: The History Press, 2017) 

Join the club 

Become a member of a family history society in Scotland. You may be able to benefit from work already done by fellow members via a society’s register of members’ interests. If you live abroad and become a member, a society may undertake limited research on your behalf. If you live in Scotland, family history societies offer advice and tuition, group visits to record offices, and an opportunity to talk about your family history with other enthusiasts and publish the results of your research. The Scottish Local History Forum is an excellent place to find a society which may be able to support your research.

Hire an expert 

If you do not want to travel to the relevant parts of Scotland where the information about your ancestry may be held, you could hire a record agent to carry out research on your behalf. The Association of Scottish Genealogists and Record Agents (ASGRA) has many experienced and competent researchers. Some Scottish archives keep lists of record agents and researchers in their areas. Other Scottish archives offer a research service.