Seachdain na Gàidhlig - World Gaelic Week 2026

Next week see's the latest Seachdain na Gàidhlig (https://seachdainnagaidhlig.scot), also known as World Gaelic Week, in which all things Scottish Gaelic are celebrated by those of us proud of Scotland's oldest continuously used language. 

The theme of the next week will be Cleachd i no caill i - Use it or lose it. The Gaelic language is in a fragile state after centuries of discrimination, although it is finally at the point where the numbers of speakers is finally beginning to rise again, thanks to initiatives such as Gaelic medium education and the efforts of our own governments here in Scotland, run by the SNP, Greens, and Labour/Liberal Democrats at various points since our parliament was reconvened in 1999. That being said, there is still an ongoing decline in usage in the native heartlands of the Western Isles, where it remains in regular community use, so much work has yet to still be done.

There will be various events across the country (and worldwide!) next week where you can find out more about the Gaelic language and ways to learn it, attend concerts, and much more - details can be found in the above website link. Here in East Ayrshire, the East Ayrshire Gaelic Forum (of which I am the secretary) will be holding two events next weekend - a Cafaidh Cabadaich or 'conversation cafe' on Saturday 28th at the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock, and on Sunday 1st March a Coisich anns a' Phàirc event, a walk around the park at Dean Castle, Kilmarnock, starting at the car park, where you can meet like minded learners, speakers and enthusiasts. Both events will be run from 1-3, and are free to attend. Our forum is also working on a few other exciting events over the next few months, but more on that in due course!

Cleachd i no caill i - agus bidh fàilte romhaibh uile! Use it or lose it - and you will all be most welcome!

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

Reopening of Glasgow's People's Palace delayed indefinitely

The People's Palace museum on Glasgow Green (pictured below, courtesy Wikipedia), which has been closed since April 2024, will not be opening anytime soon according to Glasgow Life. The arms length council body, which runs Glasgow's cultural attractions, had initially hoped to re-open it by 2027, but now finds itself in a situation of escalating costs for its revamp.

Quite why the Scottish Government won't contribute to the refurbishment of one of Scotland's most important museums is beyond me - I'm sure if it was in Edinburgh they would be singing a different tune.

You can read more about the story at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy03kxrz70zo and more about the museum itself at https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/peoples-palace.

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

Scottish Indexes conference on 28 February

The next Scottish Indexes (www.scottishindexes.com) conference takes place on Saturday 28 February, with the following talks confirmed:

• ‘Family History Research at the National Library of Ireland’ by Steven Skeldon
• ‘Researching British Prisoners of War, 1914 –1919 and 1939 –1946’ by Ken Nisbet
• ‘Patients and staff: stories of health and wellbeing’ by Lorna Steele-McGinn
• 'Introducing the Archives and Manuscripts of the National Library of Scotland' by Chris Cassells
• ‘Braking Brick Walls: How local Family History Societies can help’ by Alan Beattie

For further details visit the Scottish Indexes website.

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

FindmyPast's latest additions

Two new additions to FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk) this week that may be of interest to those with Scottish connections:

Britain, Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers
These 13,696 new additions cover pre-1832 parishes in England, Scotland and Wales.

Scotland Monumental Inscriptions
We added 2,249 records covering the years 1807 to 2009 to this set this week.

For the relevant links, and details of other collections from England, visit https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/new/atlases-monumental-inscriptions

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

The Ones Who Got Away - Pharos Tutors webinars series in July

From Pharos Tutors (www.pharostutors.com), news of a webinar programme happening this July:

The Ones Who Got Away: 13th - 17th July 2026

We will be exploring this theme in a number of ways, whether it be how to track down those hard to research ancestors and family members, different approaches to methodology, using technology in different ways or demonstration by example through case studies.
 
We are joined by current and past tutors and friends of Pharos to bring you a star studded programme of talks. The list of webinars is as follows:

Mon 13th July

    Dave Annal - Mind the Gaps!
    Debbie Kennett - How DNA uncovered a 100-year-old family secret
    Simon Fowler - My mother and history: a genealogical exploration

Tues 14th July

    Sophie Kay - Negative Space: How Genealogy Gaps Can Help Your Tree Flourish
    Joe Saunders - Social Network Analysis in Historical Research
    Phil Isherwood - Whatever Happened to Aunt Gonda? 

Wed 15th July

    Jonny Perl - Understanding What are the Odds? (WATO+) at DNA Painter
    Karen Cummings - FREE: Who are Pharos Tutors? Courses, Certificates and What to Expect 
    Nathan Dylan Goodwin - Finding Henry (pre-recorded, but with live Q&A)

Thurs 16th July

    Janet Few - Ancestors on the Margins: tracing misfortunate ancestors
    Gill Rossini - Researching LGBTQ Ancestors
    Dai Davies - Remembering Our Ancestors who Died by Suicide

Fri 17th July

    Andrew Redfern - AI as a Research Partner: Strengths, Limits and Sensible Use 
    Kelly Cornwell - Transported to Tasmania: Researching your Convict Ancestors
    Nick Barratt - When Harry Met Dotty

Each webinar will last approximately one hour. Each session will be recorded and made available for one month after the event, so do not worry if you cannot attend live on the day. Webinars are priced at £10 BUT sign up for the full week and save 20%, bringing the total cost down from £140 to only £112 (only £8 per session).

Full details of the programme can be found here: https://www.pharostutors.com/webinars

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

Tobar an Dualchais website adds interactive map

The Tobar an Dualchais / A Kist o' Riches website has been updated to include an interactive map, that now allows you to target specific areas where your family may have come from to find traditional songs and conversations from times past, in both the Gaelic and Scots languages. 

The site is freely available at https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk. 

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

Research Guides section updated on National Records of Scotland website

I'm not sure when this happened, it is possible that it happened in late November/early December and I hadn't yet picked up on it,  but the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) has now updated its Research Guides interface on its website, which thankfully means we are no longer redirected to cached copies of the guides in the site's web archive (although the historic guides remain accessible there). The Research Guides page is available at https://nrscotland.gov.uk/learning-and-events/research-guides/ (found under the Records and Archives tab of the main homepage menu).

A quick search on the web archive shows that in 2020 there were 59 guides available, but the new Research Guides section now has 86 guides available, although this is likely because guides that were embedded within other topics now have their own standalone page - for examples, the Census Records page on the old site had individual guides to each census from 1841-1921, but these are now shown as individual guides in their own right on the new guides index. I have checked a small number of guides which suggest that they have not been rewritten, although the guides themselves are stamped as having been updated 28 November 2025, so it is possible there may have been some rewrites on some of them.  

Some guides may have been removed entirely from the guides section and given their own page on the NRS site. The one concrete example I have found concerns the pages dealing with National Registration, and the 1939 National Identity Register, the emergency wartime census carried out in September 1939, just two weeks into the Second World War. This page is no longer found in the Research Guides section, but is instead located on a new dedicated page in the Statistics and Data section of the NRS website, on a new page entitled NHS Central Register, at https://nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/nhs-central-register/#. To access the application form for the 1939 National Identity Register you need to scroll to the bottom of this new page. If anyone has come across other examples of things that may have been relocated, I'd be grateful for details!

It's great to see this finally addressed, the web archive access looked very amateurish beforehand, and it was a nightmare having to use the long URL address to access guides within this. Of course, that does mean that some of us will have to recreate links to the new guides again within presentations and articles, but it at least looks fit for purpose now!

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

TheGenealogist adds Large Scale 25-inch Historic OS Maps and LiDAR to its MapExplorer tool

From TheGenealogist (www.thegenealogist.co.uk):

TheGenealogist adds Large Scale 25-inch Historic OS Maps and LiDAR to MapExplorerTM

TheGenealogist has enhanced its MapExplorerTM historic map overlay with the addition of large-scale 25-inch-to-the-mile 1890-1914 Ordnance Survey (OS) maps, alongside a brand-new LiDAR mapping layer, giving family historians sharper ways to pinpoint where ancestors lived and understand the landscapes that shaped their lives.

The 25-inch OS maps are among the most detailed historic maps available for genealogy, showing features often missing from smaller-scale mapping: individual building footprints, property boundaries, yards, alleys, small lanes, wells, schools, chapels, mills, sidings, and other local landmarks. When used in MapExplorer’s overlay view, researchers can compare these fine-grain historic details against other map layers and modern geography to locate ancestral homes and communities with far greater accuracy.

Additionally, the newly released LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) maps bring another dimension to local history research. LiDAR reveals the shape of the ground beneath vegetation and modern land use, helping users spot historic earthworks, trackways, field systems, quarries, embankments, cuttings, and other “hidden” features, particularly valuable for rural research, lost buildings, and places where the visible landscape has changed.

“By adding 25-inch OS maps and LiDAR layers to MapExplorer, we’re giving researchers new ways to connect records to real places, right down to individual buildings and the landscape around them,” said Mark Bayley, Head of Online Content at TheGenealogist. 

The 25-inch-to-the-mile OS map layer and LiDAR maps are available now within MapExplorerTM at TheGenealogist.

Read about these new additions and how they can help reveal the landscape your ancestors knew here: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2026/lines-across-the-landscape-8934/.

** I asked what the coverage was, and the new additions cover the whole of Britain; it is hoped Ireland will be added in the future.

(With thanks to Paul Bayley) 

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

University of Strathclyde to host two-day Irish Family History Course in April

Something I've been sitting on for a while, and now delighted to announce, is that I will be one of the speakers at a forthcoming two-day conference in April at the University of Strathclyde, dealing with Irish family history research. I'll be giving four separate presentations at the event, where I will be joined by fellow speakers Judith Russell, Dr. Martin Mitchell, and Ciara Chivers.

The following is an overview of the event:

Irish Family History Course 

Join us on Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22 April 2026 at the University of Strathclyde for an engaging two‑day introduction to Irish family history research.

Participants are welcome to arrive from 8:30–9:00 am each day, with teas, coffees and biscuits available to help you settle in before the sessions begin.

The course will run until 5:00 pm on day one and conclude at the earlier time of 4:15 pm on day two.

Designed for beginners and intermediate level researchers, this hands‑on course features talks from experienced genealogists and educators, covering the fundamentals of genealogy and how to work effectively with key Irish records.

Through practical exercises using vital, land and poor relief sources, attendees will gain confidence and practical skills to apply in their own research.

The two‑day course fee is £165.00 (participants are asked to bring their own lunch).

Full details of the programme and speaker biographies are provided below. Book online today! 

The talks I will be giving are Tracing the Irish in Scotland, Discover Ireland's Vital Records, Irish Censuses and Census Substitutes, and Tracing Irish Land Records. The event will be at the university, not online, and should be a lot of fun!

For a full overview of the talks programme, speaker biographies, and to register for the event, please visit https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/centreforlifelonglearning/genealogy/irishfamilyresearch/.

We'll look forward to seeing you there! 

* Just a quick word also to say that I will be participating at the Association of Professional Genealogists' Professional Genealogy Symposium at the university on 24 June 2026 - further details on this can be found at https://www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/centreforlifelonglearning/genealogy/apgprofessionalgenealogysymposium/.

Chris

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.

Departmental bunfight in Ireland over 1864-1870 death records?

I commented the following on the Irish Government's Department of Culture, Communications and Sport's Facebook page yesterday (https://www.facebook.com/DeptCultureCommsSport):

"What about the 1864-1870 death records? Sporadic death indexes, absolutely no images. Come on lads, it can't be that difficult to put them online!"

And I received a response:

"This week’s release includes the annual update of records, adding an additional year of civil records to the website. The Irish Genealogy website now provides access to Civil birth records from 1864–1925, marriage records from 1845–1950, and death records from 1864–1975.

 

"Please note that while death records from 1864–1970 are indexed on the website, the associated images are not yet available. These images remain with the General Register Office (GRO). The Department has informed the GRO that we will prioritise uploading these records to the Irish Genealogy website as soon as they are provided."

 

First of all, the indexes are absolutely not complete for death records from 1864-1870. But secondly, have we been unable to see this small group of records for all this time because one Irish governmental department is simply not collaborating with another? 

 

I'll repeat the last line again: 

 

"Come on lads, it can't be that difficult to put them online!" 

 

Chris 

Order Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland in the UK at https://bit.ly/4jJWSEh. Also available -Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors, 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. To purchase in the USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page.