Tracing your Scottish Ancestry

There is no doubt that the arrival of the Internet has transformed genealogy. All kinds of material from public records, documents, archives and censuses have been made available online to enable people to search directly for their ancestors without relying on paid researchers. Tracing your roots has never been so popular. The magazines, guides, books and a host of other printed resources can complement the search and offer a more portable guide to carry round while searching.

The Scottish Genealogy Society is often the first port of call for searchers: see their site for a good list of publications on the many topics surrounding ancestry.

Alwyn James has been writing on the subject for many years and his Scottish Roots: Step-by-Step Guide For Ancestor Hunters remains a very readable, clear guidebook. Edinburgh University Press’s Discover Your Scottish Ancestry: Internet and Traditional Resources by Graham Holton and Jack Winch provides a brisk and authoritative round up of all the methods needed for the would-be searcher. Cameron Taylor also offers an up-to-date starting guide in his book Rooted in Scotland.

The Scottish Record Office weighs in with Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors: The Official Guide, again, a very good choice for those starting off. It has been revised for 2007. The most recent book is Collins' hardback Tracing Your Scottish Family History.

Most modern books include sections on the Internet as a research tool, but one should never dismiss older methods, such as church records and graveyards - as explained in Understanding Scottish Graveyards by Betty Willsher.

The Scottish Family Tree Detective, by Rosemary Bigwood and published by Manchester University Press, as been written with the internet in mind, with lots of resources on what to do with the path seems to dry up.

If your interests are more academic than personal, then Paul Basu's Highland Homecomings: Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora is right up you street.

Books featured in this article

General Register House, Edinburgh

General Register House, Edinburgh

Licensed from scran.ac.uk

Last modified Thursday 12 February 2009