Tips on researching your family tree without breaking the bank
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This afternoon I spent some time visiting an exhibition that's in Glasgow for the two weeks of the Commonwealth Games which are being held here. It's aptly titled "One Commonwealth, Many Families" and traces the history of the Commonwealth from its roots in the British Empire until today. Alongside that history is a timeline showing the development of records preservation technology. I always feel…
The Statistical Accounts of Scotland There are plenty of online resources to help you locate and become familiar (or more familiar!) with the places where your ancestors were born, lived, worked, and were laid to rest. I've picked just a few examples and you can find plenty more using GENUKI for the UK and Ireland, or Cyndi's List for pretty much everywhere. The Gazetteer of British Places was…
The annual RootsTech conference took place in March, but it's not just an event, it's a year-round, free resource to show family historians how to build their trees and improve their genealogy skills. Whether you're wondering how artificial intelligence could help your research, or what benefits it can have for mental health, there are resources to draw on as you progress on your family history…
Glasgow Electoral Roll, Ancestry.co.uk I’ve often said that Scots parents never met a male name they couldn’t tack "-ina" onto the end of, and the names I've encountered in the records over the years have only served to confirm this. I first encountered th is phenomenon – if it can be called that – in my Glasgow childhood. When I was g rowing up in a sandstone tenement building comprised of eight…
Image by Gerd Altmann at Pixabay Social media is a bit of a Marmite* thing - people tend to either love it or hate it. But like any aspect of technology, it can be used positively or negatively, and if you're aware of how to make it work for you, it can be a great route to learning about new family history resources and events. In the past week I've come across some familiar and new sources of…
Just in time for Christmas, here are a few family history gifts that cost you (and me) absolutely nothing. 🎄 Last month FamilySearch released over 18 million new records on their website. We're used to such huge numbers in many fields nowadays, but think about that for a minute: eighteen million . That represents at least eighteen million individuals, depending on how many people are named in…
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay As the days grow shorter, perhaps the time you have for working on your family tree will increase. This week I've seen a few interesting things that may help - all for free. The first have been a couple of the big genealogy websites giving free access to their wartime records, timed to coincide with Remembrance commemorations. Ancestry are offering this…
Keeping up to speed on the wide variety of family history fairs, courses, conferences, classes, and open days on offer can be a bit of a task. Although they don’t list everything, there are two websites that post details of plenty of family history events, both online and in person. Note that many of these events do charge for attendance, but may be open to non-members of the host organisation.…
Coming up in September is the annual event hosted by Legacy Family Tree Webinars and MyHeritage - Webtember. Every Wednesday in September, four different webinars will be freely available for you to watch, either live or recorded, whether or not you have a membership for Legacy Webinars or MyHeritage. Each week, these presentations will be on a theme, such as researching German records or how to…
Image by SimoneVomFeld on Pixabay You may already be familiar with some or all of these websites, but I’ve only recently come across them! I found them all really useful and enlightening, and have bookmarked them for future use. A Dictionary of Occupational Terms Based on the Classification of Occupations used in the Census of Population, 1921 Some twentieth-century occupations may have changed…
