Scottish GENES

Wednesday, 14 October 2020

Gifts available from Treehouse Genealogy's Etsy Shop

A quick plug for a genie pal in Lanarkshire - if you are looking for some genealogy themed gifts for Christmas, or for life in general, have a look at Clare Wilson's Etsy Shop at her Treehouse Genealogy site at www.treehousegenealogy.co.uk/etsy-shop.

There is a range of items including tote bags, genealogy themed pictures and jewellery, and some monumental inscriptions, as well as more generic Scottish themed and vintage ephemera.

Some cracking stuff!

Chris

My next 5 week Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers course starts November 2nd - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=302. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is now out, also available are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

Finding Your Scottish Ancestors in Canada webinar

From Lanarkshire Family History Society (www.lanarkshirefhs.org.uk):

Finding Your Scottish Ancestors in Canada
a webinar by - Christine Woodcock, in conjunction with Lanarkshire Family History Society

Taking place online via Zoom on Thursday 29th October at 7.30pm GMT (Note this Webinar is free for all to join)

Thousands of Scots left their homeland and emigrated to Canada, many seeking a better life. Scots began coming to Canada in the mid 1600s, first as entrepreneurs – men on the make, and then as a means to an end – ways to enjoy a better life and to have the opportunity to own their own land. Others were sent to Canada in hopes of them having a better life than the one they left behind.

In this presentation, we will cover: -

•    Merchants to Newfoundland.
•    HBC.
•    Highland Scots to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
•    Selkirk Settlers.
•    Huron Tract.
•    CN/Northwest Settlements.
•    British Home Children.
•    Farm Boys.
•    Domestic Servants.

Christine Woodcock is a genealogy educator who enjoys sharing knowledge and opportunities with others to assist them in their quest to find their Scottish ancestors.

This includes organizing research tours for the Scots diaspora to research in the repositories in Scotland. When not organizing genealogy research tours to Scotland, Christine lectures on Scottish genealogy, hosts webinars, authors blogs and articles.

She is the webinar coordinator for the ISBGFH (International Society for British Genealogy and Family History) and has begun organizing their Virtual Institute.

Christine is the editor for British Connections, a quarterly newsletter for the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History.

She will be assisted by Clare Wilson of Treehouse Genealogy who will share information on Lanarkshire Family History Societies Research Centre and how you can benefit from being a member.

Clare Wilson often assists Lanarkshire Family History Society and her Business Treehouse Genealogy is based in North Lanarkshire.

She is the Creator of ‘Kilted Ancestors’, a Group where members can share stories about their Scottish Ancestry and the New Monkland (Airdrie) Back in Time Group.
She also teaches Family History to various Community Groups across Central Scotland.

Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5E0IJyvSSzm8HrQB3dtXfw

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the webinar. If you don’t already have Zoom installed on your Computer or device you may be prompted to do so, if this is the case remember to sign in a bit earlier to allow extra time for the install. The webinar should start automatically if it doesn’t please follow the instructions within the email.

(With thanks to Clare Wilson)

Chris

Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers course starts November 2nd

My next Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers course kicks off in three weeks time on November 2nd 2020 for a further five week run. If you're looking for a way to learn a little bit more each week about your favourite subject, why not sign up?!

Here's the description:

This is an intermediate level course in Scottish family history for those who are going back beyond 1850. You should have some experience with research in the Old Parochial Registers (OPRs) of the Church of Scotland and in using major websites for Scottish research. This course discusses sources that fill the gap when the OPRs are uninformative or missing; for example, records of parish and town administration, occupations, land transfer and taxation. Using these records involves several different locations. You will learn how to check online finding aids and how to find the most effective way to obtain records that may be available online or offline. This is the second course on Scottish research. If you have not taken Scottish Research Online please check its description.

Lesson Headings:

* Kirk Sessions records and parish poor
* Burgh records and town poor
* Occupations, taxation and early lists
* Land transfer and the value of sasines
* Land, inheritance and estates

Each lesson includes exercises and activities; a minimum of 1 one-hour chat session per week. (See How the Courses Work at https://www.pharostutors.com/howcourseswork.php.)

STUDENTS SAID: "well structured chats with opportunities for questions as well"

Relevant Countries: Scotland
Course Length: 5 Weeks
Start Date: 4 May 2020
Cost: £49.99

The following video also gives a bit more of a flavour about what to expect:

(Available also at https://youtu.be/1vX6GZtwZJ0)

For further details, and to sign up, please visit https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=302.

Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers has been designed as a follow on course from the Scottish Research Online course, although it can certainly be signed up for if you already have the same level of knowledge as given from the earlier course.

I'll hopefully see you there!

Chris

Discover Your Scottish Ancestors talk - Sat 17th October

This coming Saturday 17th October, from 2pm, I will be giving an online talk to Devon Family History Society entitled Discover Your Scottish Ancestors.

For further details, ands to sign up, please visit http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/calendar/

Chris

MyHeritage offers wall art option for enhanced photos

From MyHeritage (www.myheritage.com):

We’re delighted to announce that MyHeritage users can now easily turn their family photos on MyHeritage into beautiful wall art! We have created a seamless product integration with Mixtiles and arranged for MyHeritage users to receive incredible discounts of up to 50% off when they order multiple prints, plus free worldwide shipping!

Mixtiles is a leading global service for printed wall art. They print beautiful 8×8 inch (20×20 cm) photo tiles that stick and restick to your walls without a hammer or nails. This makes them a fabulous gift to give to your loved ones, especially those who love nostalgic photos (who doesn’t?).

If you’ve taken advantage of MyHeritage’s powerful photo tools — the Photo Enhancer and MyHeritage In Color™ — to transform your family photos into stunning, high-quality, full-color images, you now have a fantastic option for putting the results on display to enjoy in your home… or giving your loved ones a truly unique gift. All in just a few clicks! With people spending more time at home during 2020 than ever before, there’s no better time to brighten up your living space with wall displays that bring you joy and remind you of the people you love the most.

For further details read the full post at https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/10/new-turn-your-myheritage-family-photos-into-stunning-wall-art/. There is also a short video at https://youtu.be/Elm3CaU1ECY, and presented below also for convenience:

(With thanks to Daniel Horowitz)

Chris

Thanks to those who attended the ISBGFH Virtual British Institute

A huge thanks to the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History (www.isbgfh.com) for a fun day yesterday, at which I gave four ninety minute long (or just under!) Irish talks online as part of the three day British Virtual Institute (www.isbgfh.com/Virtual-British-Institute). The fun continues today and tomorrow with presentations on English and Welsh research from Paul Milner and Darris Williams.

The event replaced a week long institute that was due to take place in Salt Lake City, but I have already commited - Covid permitting - to try to get over next year to teach the full programme, which is provisionally scheduled to comprise of ten x one hour sessions. We had a fun eight hour session in total (with a few breaks!), and just as it ended I was then able to put my feet up and watch the first episode of the new series of Who Do You Think You Are?, so a good day for genealogy in the Paton household!

The ISBGFH offers a range of benefits, including its quarterly British Connections publication (to which I regularly contribute topics on Irish subjects). For more info, and to join, visit www.isbgfh.com/Join-ISBGFH.

Chris

Sunday, 11 October 2020

News from the Scottish Indexes conference

At the Scottish Indexes conference yesterday (one of the best yet!), there were a variety of speakers on a range of topics, and some good lively debate at the Q&A sessions! If you were unable to attend, the entire day's proceedings are still available on the Scottish Indexes Group on Facebook for a short period at https://www.facebook.com/groups/scottishindexes/. My own talk on Scottish Marriages is also available for a week at https://youtu.be/0rcWOTykgwc, and is presented below for convenience. (It will remain online until Sunday 18th October 2020.)

At the conference, there were some gleanings of Scottish genealogy news which may be of interest. In addition to the discovery that the Hawick Heritage Hub is now up and running again at a reduced service provision, and offering access to its ScotlandsPeople service (see https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2020/10/hawick-heritage-hub-reopens-at-reduced.html), was some interesting news also from Glasgow.

Archivist Dr Irene O'Brien stated that an announcement on the re-opening of the Mitchell Library is expected within the next week, and that the archive service itself will be accessible for three days a week, with restrictions (e.g. productions will need to be ordered in advance, and will need to be quarantined after consultation for a short period). Hopefully if the Mitchell is re-opening the Glasgow registrar's service may also be re-opened to an extent, but we should know soon enough. Irene also advised that it is hoped in the foreseeable future that many new datasets will go online, including the following:

Glasgow poor law indexes
Glasgow Episcopal church records (pre-1855)
Glasgow policemen (pre-1932)

It was also good to hear from Emma Maxwell of Scottish Indexes that the NRS's kirk session records for Scotland, long awaited on ScotlandsPeople, may now be on their way at long last in 2021, with testing currently underway.

The next Scottish Indexes conference is scheduled for December 6th 2020 - details to be announced in due course at www.scottishindexes.com.

(With thanks to Emma and Graham Maxwell)

Chris

Hawick Heritage Hub reopens at reduced capacity

From the Heritage Hub website at Hawick (https://www.liveborders.org.uk/culture/archives/heritage-hub/):

The Heritage Hub is open now for pre-booked visits and at a reduced capacity.

Visitors can now safely return to the Heritage Hub, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 09:30 to 16:30 by booking in advance.

To book a slot to access Scotland’s People or the archive collection please phone 01450 360699 within those hours or email localhistory@liveborders1.org.

The Heritage Hub is the home of the Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Service. It cares for a wide range of archive documents and local history publications from the four historic counties of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire.

The Heritage Hub is a ScotlandsPeople Centre. For £15.00 a day you can have unlimited access to one of the world’s best online sources of original family history information. There are almost 100 million records to look through for Scottish ancestry research, with census, wills, statutory birth, marriage and death, Old Parish and Roman Catholic records and a growing series of Valuation Rolls.

When you visit the Heritage Hub for the first time you’ll be asked to register. Please bring two forms of identification (at least one must be photographic).

Comment: This is good news for those who are seeking access to the ScotlandsPeople service, although there is reduced capacity initially. There is still no news whatsoever from the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh about the ScotlandsPeople Centre re-opening at any point, but it provides a bit of hope that perhaps some of the other centres may soon be able to restore access to the ScotlandsPeople service at Kilmarnock, Glasgow etc.

Chris

Thursday, 8 October 2020

Irish death records 1871-1877 added to IrishGenealogy.ie

More good news from Ireland - death records from 1871-1877 are now online. This leaves just 1864-1870 to go! Here's the announcement from the Irish Government:

Ministers Martin and Humphreys Announce Release of More Historic Records Online

Additional images taken from the Registers of Death for the years 1871 to 1877 are now available to view on the website, www.irishgenealogy.ie. In total, images for 671,599 Death entries have been added to the website meaning over 15.5 million register records are now available to the public to view and research online on the www.irishgenealology.ie website.

The records now available online include:

    Birth register records – 1864 to 1919
    Marriage register records – 1845 to 1944
    Death register records – 1871 to 1969

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, T.D., welcomed this latest release:

"This release of death register data by the Civil Registration Service is part of an ongoing partnership between my Department and the Department of Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands. The aim is to make all of these historic records freely and easily accessible to all members of the public both at home and throughout our Diaspora".

Ms Heather Humphreys T.D., Minister for Social Protection said:

“I welcome the addition of these further years of Civil Death register entries. I had the pleasure four years ago of making most of these records available on the www.irishgenealogy.ie website, when I was Minister for the Arts, and it is wonderful to see that the Civil Registration Service of my Department has now nearly made all of these records available to be searched freely online”.

(Source: (https://merrionstreet.ie/en/News-Room/Releases/Ministers_Martin_and_Humphreys_Announce_Release_of_More_Historic_Records_Online.html)

Chris

My next book Sharing Your Family History Online is now available to pre-order

My next book is now listed online at Pen and Sword for pre-order at the introductory offer price of £11.99 (RRP £14.99). Here's the blurb!

Sharing Your Family History Online: A Guide for Family Historians
(Paperback)

By Chris Paton
Imprint: Pen & Sword Family History
Series: Tracing Your Ancestors
Pages: 144
Illustrations: 40 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781526780294
Published: 30th January 2021

For many enthusiasts pursuing their family history research, the online world offers a seemingly endless archive of digitised materials to help us answer the questions posed by our ancestors. In addition to hosting records, however, the internet also offers a unique platform on which we can host our research and lure in prospective cousins from around the world, to help build up a larger, shared, ancestral story.

In Sharing Your Family History on the Internet, genealogist and best-selling author Chris Paton will explore the many ways in which we can present our research and encourage collaboration online. He will detail the many organsiations and social media applications that can permit co-operation, describe the software platforms on which we can collate our stories, and illustrate the many ways in which we can publish our stories online.

Along the way, Chris Paton will also explore how we can make our research work further for us, by drawing in experts and distant cousins from around the world to help us break our ancestral brick walls, not just through sharing stories, but by accessing uniquely held documentation by family members around the world, including our very own shared DNA.

To pre-order the book, please visit https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Sharing-Your-Family-History-Online-Paperback/p/18718.

For my other Pen and Sword books, please visit https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Chris-Paton/a/1799

I hope it might help with your research!

Chris