1911 Scottish census tip

In between writing assignments I am slowly working away through the 1911 Scottish census. The big find for me so far has been the discovery that my grandfather Charles Paton was actually in Scotland as a wee boy at that point, along with his siblings and mother. You will have met Charles before - his photo appears on the Scottish GENES Facebook page and the link to that on the top right of this page!

Charles was born in Belgium to Scottish parents in 1905, and I knew he had returned to Scotland for a period before returning to Brussels prior to the war, but had been unclear for how long. Having found that he had briefly stayed in Inverness in 1907 and attended school, and having known from his school register there that he had then moved to Glasgow, I was not sure for how long he had remained in the city, but it now appears he was there for several years. Next stop now (when I can get the chance!) is a visit to the Mitchell Library to try to find school records for him in Glasgow if possible, now that I know where he was living! As expected there was no sign of his father David, who I've already established from Belgian sources was back in Brussels in 1911 managing his shops for Glaswegian firm R & J. Dicks Ltd.

A useful tip before spending credits on ScotlandsPeople is to remember that the National Library of Scotland, in conjunction with the Internet Archive, has digitised over 700 Post Office directories for Scotland - 600 are accessible through the NLS website at www.nls.uk/family-history/directories/post-office, the rest on the Internet Archive directly at www.archive.org. The cut off point for the collection is 1911/12, and so if you are unsure about whether a find on the 1911 search page is that for your man or woman, you could try to find them on the directory first, where extra information such as a trade may help you to narrow down further before committing to the extra 5 credits.

Hope you are having as much fun with it as I am!

Chris