Perth & Kinross Family History Fair

The third Perth & Kinross Family History Fair will take place on Saturday 23rd August from 10am to 4pm.

Bigger and better than before, the fair will take place in five different venues in Perth and you can visit them all by vintage bus courtesy of Stagecoach. The Library and Archive based at the A. K. Bell building have been joined by the Registrars, Perth and Kinross Heritage Service, the Black Watch Museum and Bereavement Services. Talks will take place in the Museum in the morning and in the Library Theatre in the afternoon. Hands on training sessions will take place in the library computer suite. Many organisations will be exhibiting on the day and if yours would like to be one of them, the Library would like to hear from you!

Watch their website www.pkc.gov.uk/localstudies or look out for the event leaflet closer to the time.

Chris

Republic of Ireland to get a national Famine Remembrance Day

At long last, the southern Irish government has set up a committee to devise an annual commemoration for one of the greatest injustices ever to be visited on the island of Ireland. The Irish Famine of the 1840s, which saw 1.5 million people either die from starvation or forced to emigrate to escape the hunger caused by a series of devastating potato blights, is known in Gaelic as "An Gort Mor", "the Great Pain", and has been commemorated annually in Montreal since 1859, where many of the migrants fled to in its aftermath.

Hopefully the government of the north will follow suit, as the famine there affected both Protestants and Catholics, and was as much as a national tragedy there as it was in the south.

For more information, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7415927.stm

Chris

A Call to Arms at Edinburgh Castle

A new military exhibition gets underway from Friday 23rd May 2008 until Sunday 1st May 2009 highlighting the various fighting techniques of Scottish soldiers over the centuries. Entitled Call to Arms, the exhibition at Edinburgh Castle will concentrate on the four main archetypal Scottish warriors - the 15th Century mercenary Gallowglass ("Gall oglaigh" - "foreign warrior)", the 17th Century Highland warrior, a 19th Century Scotsman in the British Army, and the modern army.

To learn more on how to wield a claymore and the best methods for leading an effective Highland charge, visit http://www.nms.ac.uk/calltoarms.aspx

Chris

BBC Radio Scotland - A House With a Past

Today saw the start of a new six part series on BBC Radio Scotland which looks into the history of various properties in Scotland, and shows how to research a property's past. The first episode looks at Smithy House near Castle Douglas, the Bay Horse in the Gatehouse of Fleet and how to start research into a property by visiting Registers of Scotland in Edinburgh.

For more information, and to hear the first episode again, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/radioscotland/programmes/ahousewithapast

Chris

Scottish Parliament Archaeology Book Launched

On Tuesday, Culture Minister Linda Fabiani MSP launched the book which reveals the archaeological and historical findings from the site of the Scottish Parliament. Scotland’s Parliament and the Canongate: archaeology and history, details the complex task when a team of archaeologists, historians, specialists in historic buildings and scientists - led by Historic Scotland - began, at that time, the country’s largest archaeological excavation in 1998. The book documents the archaeological excavation and research, and the architectural and historical analysis of the site of the Parliament, and places it in its wider context in the medieval burgh of Canongate. A key part of the study was the investigation of Queensberry House – a major 17th-century urban palace on the edge of the site.

Gordon Barclay, Head of National Policy at Historic Scotland, who led the project and edited the book along with Anna Ritchie, said: “The decision to locate the new parliament building in the heart of the medieval burgh of Canongate, and adjacent to Scotland’s primary royal palace, provided an opportunity to explore a large proportion of an important medieval town that had lain at the centre of Scotland’s history. The integration of the archaeological project with the construction work was a major achievement by the archaeological contractors, Headland Archaeology and SUAT Ltd. The fieldwork and the subsequent analysis of the information retrieved have produced a rich and complex history of the site. It is a great achievement by everyone concerned.”

The book is available from the Scotland’s Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, National Museums Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF - www.socantscot.org

Chris

Rottnest Island Cemetery

I visited Australia last year, and during the trip came across the most amazing wee cemetery on Rottnest Island, about an hour's ferry trip from Freemantle in Western Australia. It is believed that only thirteen people were buried here, all from British and Irish backgrounds, with the names of only seven known. I photographed all the stones and the cemetery, and have placed a selection of the pictures online at http://scotsgreateststory.tripod.com/id23.html along with the names of those whose graves are known.

So if one of your ancestors disappeared from the records in the 19th Century, and was Australia bound, why not pop along to the page and see if they made it as far as Rottnest Island...!

Chris

FindmyPast updates National Burial Register with Yorkshire records

Findmypast.com has now published online burial index records from the parish of Selby, as collated by the Federation of Family History Societies. These comprise over 10,000 records from Selby cemetery in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as well as over 800 records from Bubwith All Saints in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

For more information visit www.findmypast.com

Chris

Glasgow University to house Scottish Brewing Archive

The Scottish Brewing Archive has handed the reins over for its collection to the University of Glsgow. Set up in 1982, the archive hosts thousands of records and books kept by the various brewing companies in Scotland. The collection, to join the university's Business Archive, will be accessible to the general public.

For more information, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7410167.stm
and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7410351.stm

Chris

Free online access to American military records

Ancestry.com is making its entire U.S. Military Collection - the largest online collection of American military records - available for free to the public. From May 20th to May 31st, you can log on to http://www.ancestry.com/military to view more than 100 million names and 700 titles and databases of military records, the majority of which come from the US's National Archives and Records Administration, from all fifty of the U.S. states.

In addition, Ancestry and NARA have announced a new agreement to make millions of digitised historical records available online. The initial NARA collections to be digitized under the new agreement include INS Passenger and Crew Arrival andDeparture Lists from 1897-1958 and Death Notices of U.S. Citizens Abroad from 1835-1974, which have not been available to the public outside of NARA research rooms before now. Ancestry already hosts the entire collection of US Federal census records from 1790 to 1930, passenger lists from 1820-1960, and WWI and WWII draft registration cards, all of which are held by NARA.

(With thanks to the FFHS)

Chris

Scotland's Family Tree forum

I had never heard of a forum entitled Scotland's Family Tree (ScotFamTree) until last week, and so had a look earlier today. The site is a subscription based forum whereby members contribute and benefit from the many resources it has to offer, with different levels of membership available through separate tiers, including a basic free membership.

The site is accessible at http://scotfamtree.11.forumer.com/index.php , and for more information on the kinds of look ups that they can do, visit http://scotfamtree.11.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=8367

Chris