Scottish Genealogy Network catch up in Glasgow

It was great to catch up with fellow members of the Scottish Genealogy Network yesterday (Saturday 20th May) in Glasgow, to deliberate over all things genealogical! Amongst topics discussed yesterday were the state of play for professional genealogists just now in Scotland in a post-Covid era, and tour guiding as a career in Scotland. 

The Scottish Genealogy Network is an informal network of Scottish based professional genealogists, and those working in related professions (universities, libraries, archives, etc), which meets up regularly for a chat, and which also has a dedicated Facebook group page for members to offer support and an information exchange. The next meeting will be held in Edinburgh in the near future - for further information, visit http://scottishgenealogynetwork.blogspot.com.

Chris

Order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors in the UK at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. For the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Change of venue for SGN meeting on Saturday 4th March

The Scottish Genealogy Network (http://scottishgenealogynetwork.blogspot.com) meeting this forthcoming Saturday 4th March (see http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/02/scottish-genealogy-network-to-meet-in.html) will now be held at 1:00pm at the Standing Order on George Street, rather than at the Guildford Arms.

I hope to see you there!

Chris 

Pre-order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Scottish Genealogy Network to meet in Edinburgh on March 4th

After a very successful meeting in Glasgow last weekend (see https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/02/scottish-genealogy-network-meets-in.html), the Scottish Genealogy Network (http://scottishgenealogynetwork.blogspot.com) will be meeting again very soon, in Edinburgh, on Saturday 4th March. The venue will be the Guildford Arms, next to the National Records of Scotland, at 1pm.

The Scottish Genealogy Network is, as it suggests, a network for those who work professionally within the family history world in Scotland, whether as a genealogist, archivist, librarian, tutor, or in ancestral tourism. There's no membership fee, it's a group of like-minded folk coming together to discuss the various issues and challenges that we encounter in our everyday lives in the industry, over a drink or a bite to eat. We have visited archives in the past to help in our professional development, and have also held our own conferences for members. We also have our own private Facebook group where we can share news, events and help each other out, with access to this group conditional on attendance at a meeting. You can find out more about us at the SGN website above, and read several past events reports there also. 

If you are a working genealogist, work professionally in an associated discipline, or are a retired professional in the field, you'll be most welcome to attend - hopefully we'll see you there!

Chris

Pre-order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Scottish Genealogy Network meets in Glasgow

Yesterday I had the great pleasure to meet up with fellow members of the Scottish Genealogy Network (http://scottishgenealogynetwork.blogspot.com) for the first time in almost four years, with thirteen hardy souls meeting up for the first of two meetings over the next two months in which members hope to get back into the swing of things in terms of our in-person genealogical networking. It was an immense success, with five of us still there talking eight hours after we started - there was a certainly lot of catching up to be done that was well and truly caught up on! 

The SGN members come from various places in Scotland's professional genealogy community, including members from the Association of Professional Genealogists and ASGRA, and others not in any organisation, as well as those who may have recently retired from the profession. In addition we have members from associated disicplines such as university tutors, ancestral tourism operators, librarians/archivists, and more. Its success over the last ten years has come from its sheer informality - there are no membership fees, no certification programmes, it's simply a talking shop for like-minded folk to get together from time to time to discuss recent developments that may impact on our work as professional genealogists. In the past we have organised occasional visits to archives and libraries, and even the occasional CPD event. 

The SGN also has a private members group on Facebook, allowing us to continue to network between meetings - about the only rules we have are that the network is open to people based in Scotland, and that access to the Facebook group page is only permitted after attendance at a meeting.

The next SGN meeting will be on Saturday, March 4th 2023 in Edinburgh, venue TBC. If you work in the professional genealogy world in Scotland, and are based here, we'd love to see you - pencil the date in for now!

The only down side was the complete failure of my Type 40 time capsule at the end of the evening (I should never have parked it on Buchanan Street!), but the trains were running, so all was well... :)

Chris

Pre-order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Glasgow and West of Scotland FHS centre becomes FamilySearch Affiliate Library

Some great news from the Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society (www.gwsfhs.org.uk):

On 1st November 2022, our Glasgow & West of Scotland Family History Society research centre and library at 32 Mansfield St, Glasgow, G11 5QP became a FamilySearch Affiliate Library.

FamilySearch is a non-profit organisation and website affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Department. The Family History Department was founded in 1894 as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU). The GSU began microfilming records of genealogical importance in 1938. FamilySearch is free of charge to everyone, regardless of tradition, culture or religious affiliation.

The FamilySearch website offers free access to a huge database of digital images and indexes of genealogical records. Access to these records is subject to copyright and an agreement with the owner or custodian of each record set. In many cases, the images are not available for you to view at home, but may be viewed on-site at a Family History Centre, an Affiliate Library, or the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

If you visit our premises you may view most of the images, using our PCs or your own device connected to our network via wifi. Once you leave our premises, you will be unable to view the restricted images on-line and so please download your selected images to your device before you leave. If you use our PCs, we can print your images or forward them to you via email.

We don’t have an institutional login to FamilySearch; you must login to FamilySearch using your own credentials. If you don’t have a FamilySearch account, you can easily create one using the Create Account button at the top righthand side of the FamilySearch home screen.  There is no charge or subscription for a FamilySearch account.  You must login to FamilySearch to view the images.

FamilySearch has many records relevant for research in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. For example, they have unindexed and untranscribed images of many Cemetery records. Please refer to the FamilySearch Catalog or their Research Wiki for more details.

(Original story at https://www.gwsfhs.org.uk/2023/02/12/familysearch-affiliate-library/)

I've heard from Murray Archer, the society's minutes secretary, that the centre became a FamilySearch affiliate in November, but that they did not wish to publicise the fact straightaway in order to allow time for training of volunteer assistants. This is now the second family history society in Scotland to become a FamilySeach affiliate, with Aberdeen and North-East Scotland FHS having that status also. 

The Family History Centre in Julian Avenue closed more than four years ago - if you are a former patron of that centre, a member of the GWSFHS, or simply someone wishing to find out more about membership, visit the society's website at https://www.gwsfhs.org.uk/about/research-centre/ for further details, including opening hours.

Now that I am a member of the society, I'll need to pop up to take a look! In the meantime, you can read about the Scottish Genealogy Network's visit to the centre in 2015 at http://scottishgenealogynetwork.blogspot.com/2015/03/sgn-visit-to-glasgow.html.

(With thanks to Murray)

Chris

Pre-order Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors at https://bit.ly/BelfastAncestors. Also available - Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records, Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Scottish Genealogy Network meeting on February 11th in Glasgow

It's been three years since members of the Scottish Genealogy Network (http://scottishgenealogynetwork.blogspot.com) last met in person, but fingers crossed we are now on the other side of the pandemic. As such, now is as good a time as any to catch up with colleagues to discuss all things genealogy! 

The Scottish Genealogy Network is, as it suggests, a network for those who work professionally within the family history world in Scotland, whether as a genealogist, archivist, librarian, tutor, or in ancestral tourism. There's no membership fee, it's a group of like-minded folk coming together to discuss the various issues and challenges that we encounter in our everyday lives in the industry, over a drink or a bite to eat. We have visited archives in the past to help in our professional development, and have also held our own conferences for members. We also have our own private Facebook group where we can share news, events and help each other out, with access to this group conditional on attendance at a meeting. You can find out more about us at the SGN website above, and read several past events reports there also. 

We'll be meeting at The Counting House in Glasgow's George Square on Saturday 11th February 2023 from 1.00pm-2.30pm, for a chat, a drink, and perhaps a bite to eat, so if you want to see what it is all about, why not come along and join us? (A further visit is also provisionally penned in for Saturday March 4th in Edinburgh, details tbc)

If you are a working genealogist, work professionally in an associated discipline, or are a retired professional in the field, you'll be most welcome to attend - hopefully we'll see you there! 

Some pics from past events and meet-ups...!

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

ScotlandsPeople to reinstate fuzzy search tool

A big thanks to Dee Williams at ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) for advising me this morning that having reviewed their decision last week to remove the fuzzy search and name variant tools (see http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2022/02/scotlandspeople-explains-recent-search.html), the centre has decided upon reflection, and after receiving feedback from several folk, that they will reintroduce the fuzzy search tool. This will not happen immediately, but at the next system update. 

The name variants option is a bit more problematic, as it does not work properly apparently, and will take some time and effort to address before its reintroduction.

(Thanks to Dee, and to colleagues within the Scottish Genealogy Network, including Michael Tobias and Fergus Smith)

 

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.