Tips for family history research
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.