British Newspaper Archive update

I'm a bit tardy here, but I should document the fact that the British Newspaper Archive (https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) has passed 87 million pages of added content now, with the current total at 87, 435,010 pages. 

The following are the recent additions for Scotland and Ireland over the last 30 days:

Irish titles:

Larne Times
1990

Banbridge Leader
2000, 2002

Louth Standard
1971-1975, 1981


Scottish titles:

Fife News
1875-1877, 1890

Forfar Dispatch
1987-1991, 1993

Cumbernauld News
1993

Milngavie and Bearsden Herald
1901-1902, 1970-1979

Northern Scot and Moray & Nairn Express
1995-1999

Galloway Gazette
1874-1876, 1879, 1883, 1886, 1993-1995

Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser
1989-1992

Carluke and Lanark Gazette
1993, 1995-1997, 2000-2003

Inverness Courier
1969-1977, 1980, 1982-1983

Brechin Advertiser
1982, 1986-1987, 1989-1991

Stirling Journal and Advertiser
1875, 1877, 1882-1883

Daily Record
1984-1985

Broughty Ferry Guide and Advertiser
1990-1991

Motherwell Times
1987, 1991

Musselburgh News
1990

Kirriemuir Herald
1993

Fife Herald
1989-1992, 1995

Kirkintilloch Herald
1990-1992

Kilsyth Chronicle
1989-1993

Bellshill Speaker
1990-1991

Buchan Observer and East Aberdeenshire Advertiser
1992

Witness (Edinburgh)
1859

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 purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

SCAN website to be killed off on January 9th 2025

The end is nigh for the Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) website at www.scan.org.uk, which has been replaced by the new Your Scottish Archives platform (see https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2024/12/your-scottish-archive-catalogue-launches.html). The following announcement is currently being carried at the top of the SCAN platform, which for twenty years has provided a catalogue detailing holdings in over fifty archives across Scotland:

Please be aware that from 9 January 2025 this website, The Scottish Archive Network, will be decommissioned.

The SCAN website will have had its final web archive completed and all the content, apart from access to the Highlands and Islands Emigration records, will be available via National Records of Scotland Web archive.
 
The Highland and Island Emigration records database (HD4/5) is already available to search for free on the Scotland's People website.  Researchers just need to register for a free account in order to search it.

There is also a supporting record guide for researchers which provides background information and explains how to search the database at the Scotland's People help and support guides.

RIP SCAN...

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 purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Ancestry adds RNLI and heraldry records

Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk) has made a couple of new records collections available:

UK and Ireland, The Royal National Lifeboat Institution Records, 1824-1989
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62701/
Source: RNLI Records. Poole, Dorset, England: Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

Institution Records, 1824-1989

This collection covers the records between 1824 and 1989 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), a charity to save lives at sea on the coasts of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. Record types in this collection include pension lists, honorary presentation books, legacy books, medal books, lifeboat donation records, crew lists, and applications.

Using this collection

Records in this collection may include the following information:

• Name
• Residence
• Occupation and rank
• Name of assigned lifeboat and station
• Employment or volunteer start/end date
• Date of gallantry medal(s)
• Date of pension
• Date of injury or death
• Information about spouse (name, death date)

The pensions and crew lists within this collection can provide a detailed timeline of your family member's service and valuable information about their life. The mApplications for Gallantry Medals books, also in this collection, may reveal specific instances of your family member's bravery. The RNLI records also include widow's pensions, which name relatives of RNLI members who died in the line of duty. If your family member served on a lifeboat, you may find documentation of rescues the lifeboat engaged in, including shipwrecks and events from the First and Second World Wars. You may also find records for your ancestor who funded lifeboats.


UK, Heraldic Card Index, 1150-1850
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62736/
Source: Heraldic Card Index. London, England: Society of Antiquaries of London.

About the UK, Heraldic Card Index, 1150-1850

This collection captures hundreds of thousands of index cards created by the Society of Antiquaries for the purpose of connecting coats of arms to family names between 1150 and 1850. The Society of Antiquaries not only recorded descriptions of the coat of arms, but also brief genealogical information for the individual the coat of arms was assigned to.

Using this collection

In these index cards you may find the following information:

• Name (including suffixes and aliases)
• Age
• Birth year
• Occupation
• Residence
• Date and place of death
• Names of relatives
• Artifact date

This collection can help you determine if your family had a coat of arms, or to which family a coat of arms belonged to. Each index card describes a coat of arms and the objects on which it appears (seals, plateware, monuments, etc.). Sometimes the index card even includes a photograph or drawing. Keep in mind that the amount of information on each card varies greatly and may be printed or handwritten.


And two new third party indexes:

Web: United Kingdom, Corps of Military Police Index, 1800-2022
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63108/

Web: Isle Of Man, Wills Index, 1600-1864
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63077/

For further details on all, please consult the links given.

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 purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Scottish Baronial Families 1250-1750, by David Dobson - review

The Genealogical Publishing Company has kindly sent me a copy of David Dobson's new book, Scottish Baronial Families 1250-1750, for review.

Under Scotland's old feudal system, baronies were erected as administrative areas in Scotland, with their chief overseers, the barons, being the Scottish equivalent of the English 'lord of the manor'. Barons were not a peerage rank, with a baron only being a baron so long as he retained the barony to which he had been granted a right to oversee - or to be more accurate, so long as he retained the 'caput' of the barony, where the barony courts were held. As a feudal possession. baronies were heritable, and could thus be passed down to an heir. The role of baronies and their barons diminished following the passing of the Heritable Jurisditions Act of 1747.

David's book provides a concise introduction to the topic, summarising the role of the barons in Scottish society, and identifying the limited number of baronies for which records have been published. There then follows the main event, an alphabetical listing of over a thousand baronial familes known to exist over a 500 year period from 1250-1750. The main source used by David is The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, and in the introduction he notes that for more concise information on the families themselves, Margaret Stuart's Scottish Family History (1979, GPC, Baltimore) should be consulted. 

The book does not act as a manorial documents register, as found down south, it identifies the individuals known to have held baronies, and when they were granted the right to do so, with no further source citations noted in most cases, apart from a very general bibliography noted in the introduction. This means that if you wish to chase records for those noted, many of which are in private hands, there will still be some work to do for the reader. In addition, an index of barony placenames might have been a useful addition, which is unfortunately missing. 

Nevertheless, this is still a very useful guide to those known to have held baronies in Scotland, a much under-used source for local records. An appendix at the end also identifies some Scots-Irish baronets, not to be confused with barons, these being created for entiriely different purposes from 1611 as a means to fund the Plantations of Ulster and the settlement of Nova Scotia.  

Scottish Baronial Families 1250-1750, by David Dobson, is available to buy from the Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore Maryland, USA, priced at US $35. For further details visit https://genealogical.com/store/scottish-baronial-families-1250-1750/.

(With thanks to the GPC for the review copy)

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 purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Next Scottish Research Online course starts 6th January 2025

The next Scottish Research Online course from Pharos Tutors (www.pharostutors.com), taught by myself, starts on January 6th 2025. 

Scottish Research Online (102)
Tutor: Chris Paton

Scotland was one of the first countries to digitise its major family history records collections for accessibility online, and continues to this day to use such resources to promote a worldwide interest in family history for those with Caledonian connections.

This course describes the major sites and record types that you will encounter in your research, and how to analyse the results. It compares and contrasts many of the key websites available for Scottish research, drilling down to key features within each to help improve a users knowledge of what is contained within the presented records, and equally important, what is not. It explores the key resources for vital records such as births, marriages and deaths, as recorded by the state from 1855 onwards, and the usefulness of the decennial censuses from 1841-1911 in connecting family members and branches together.

Prior to civil registration there are the records created by the Church of Scotland as the state church, with the course exploring access to its Old Parish Registers (OPRs) on ScotlandsPeople and through FamilySearchs various finding aids. In the final lesson, wills and inventories generated by Scotlands confirmation process are explored, with some of the many differences flagged up between the records of Scotland and the rest of the UK, thanks to the distinctly different legal system north of the border.

Most importantly this course will inspire you to actively pursue your interest in Scottish genealogy and take it to the next level.

Lesson Headings:

    * Understanding Scotlands People, FindmyPast, Family Search, Ancestry, and FreeCen
    * Essential Maps and Gazetteers
    * Civil Registration and Census Research
    * Searching in Church of Scotland Registers
    * Scottish Wills and Inventories

Note: it is recommended but not required that students in this course sign up for the basic search option, 30 units/seven days, at ScotlandsPeople (cost is £7.50 for 30 credits)

Each lesson includes exercises and activities; a minimum of 1 one-hour chats See How Courses Work.

STUDENTS SAID: 

'I particularly liked the fact that the course didn't just focus on the well-known BMD resources available, but on a much wider range of websites, including many which give extremely useful background information on the geography and history of the localities where our ancestors lived.'

'Excellent tuition from Chris Paton; very good course materials; well-paced; excellent value for money. I very much liked the opportunity to work at my own pace.'

Relevant Countries: Scotland
Course Length: 5 Weeks
Start Date: 6 January 2025
Cost: £70.00

For a wee video introduction to the course, see below or visit https://youtu.be/ssdYLlGtoHw?si=eTlH-QEVCQlmd6Ii

To sign up for the course, please visit https://www.pharostutors.com/scottish-research-online

I hope to maybe see you there!

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 purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.

Your Scottish Archive catalogue launches

Although I am still down under in Australia, this is too big a development to wait to talk about until I get home! 

The new Your Scottish Archives site has finally launched, after an extensive delay, at https://yourscottisharchives.com. Designed to replace the long out-of-date Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) platform, the site offers a catalogue of many archival institutions in Scotland, including county archive services, and for the first time, community based archives. In addition, the site has an updated Knowledge Base and Glossary, features previously available on the SCAN platform. 

This is probably the most significant development in Scottish genealogy for a decade, with the platform able to assist family historians to locate many collections that can assist with research. Please note that this is not a straight migration of participating organsiations from the SCAN platform, however, so there may be organisations that were represented there now not on the new Your Scottish Archive platform, so do always remember to consult websites of Scottish archives also, in case they have their own dedicated catalogues there.

Happy hunting - and I will carry out a fuller review when I get home!

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 purchase in tthe USA visit https://www.penandswordbooks.com. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, on Threads at @scottishgenesblog and via Mastodon at https://mastodon.scot/@ScottishGENES.