ScotFamTree forum

With the temporary demise of Talking Scot, like many people I've been looking at some other forums this week to see what the current state of play is with other sites (see Talking Scot forum offline). As such, I've been along and had a more detailed look today at the ScotFamTree forum.

You turn your back for two minutes and they decide to rearrange the furniture! The site has adopted a new look since I last visited a few months back, a very impressive new look, but it also seems to have considerably expanded the range of material it has available to offer online. The site offers several different levels of membership, with a basic free membership that allows you to get used to the forum and some assistance for queries, but also an enhanced second and third tier, which costs £8 a year.

There are some very noticeable and impressive advantages to this forum compared to other sites. For one thing, in addition to the straightforward 'lets-go-somewhere-to-have-a-chat' function, the site also works very much like an online family history society. For the annual fee, which is cheaper than the membership for many FHSs, you actually get access to considerably more material than some societies have to offer, either available online or by way of records look ups. It is also well structured with different categories - there's a surnames section, an occupations section (with whole categories on mining villages, fishing villages, and more), not to mention a county based queries section (similar to that on Rootschat), and many others. I've spent the last hour going through the ScotFamTree site and am still finding new categories of material. A very good sign!

If there is a downside, it is simply that the web address doesn't quite flow off the tongue - it's at http://scotfamtree.11.forumer.com - but once you've bookmarked it you won't have to worry about that again!

If you are suffering from withdrawal symptoms from Talking Scot's absence, or are looking for a forum dedicated to Scottish family history research, I'd definitely urge you to have a look at this forum, though I'd really make sure you have a chair behind you when you do - you'll probably be bowled over! :)

Chris

www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
Scotland's Greatest Story
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