Thanks to the three Ayrshire family history societies!

I had the pleasure of speaking at the joint meeting of the Ayrshire family history societies last Thursday in Troon, at Portland Church hall, in what I believe was the first such joint meeting since the pandemic. I was actually told that my recent blog post at the end of last year on whether Scotland's family history community was beginning to suffer from 'Long Zoom' was a factor in it being established (see http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/11/is-scotlands-family-history-community.html), so glad to have helped if that was true! It was a packed hall, with folk having travelled from Largs, Kilmarnock, Troon, and throughout the county and beyond.

Ayrshire today is split into three administrative council areas, North, East and South, and the three Ayrshire societies are located in each, being Troon @ Ayrshire FHS (https://www.troonayrshirefhs.org.uk), East Ayrshire FHS (https://eastayrshirefhs.co.uk), and North Ayrshire FHS (http://www.northayrshirefhs.org.uk), which used to be the Largs and North Ayrshire FHS. All can help with research in their specific parts of the county, and alongside the resources that casn be found from Ayrshire's joint archive service at https://www.ayrshirearchives.org.uk.

The talk that I gave was a deliberately simplified introduction to how DNA can be useful in helping out with family history research. There was a simple introduction to what DNA is, and the sorts of tests available, with the majority of the talk highlighting three examples from my own family tree in Scotland and Ireland of just how DNA matches can help to unblock brick walls in research. The purpose was to simply show that DNA can be an important thing to test, and that it is best to do so sooner than later, particularly with elderly relatives, even if you don't quite know how to understand all the technical gubbins behind it at first - that will come, in time!

A huge thanks to all who came along, and to the societies for organising it, I hope it is the first of many more annual events to come! This year I have been able to give a few in-person talks, after several years of online pergatory, and whilst Zoom can be convenient, and reach members beyond Scotland and Ireland, it simply cannot replicate the sense of community that in-person events can help to foster on societies' own doorsteps. 

And I sincerely hope whoever laid out the food spread after the sesion will seriously consider catering for weddings and other events - it was magnificent, I'm not sure I've ever seen such an amazing feast at a society event!

Chris

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