Scottish Family Tree Detective

The Scottish family tree detective is a practical, user-friendly guide to research in family history – in locating the ancestors and exploring their background. Its aim is to provide sign-posts to the past and to solve problems. It shows how to make the most of new opportunities of internet access to information, research resources and catalogues of collections held in archives and libraries, online and on paper. This ‘freedom to roam’ enjoyed by researchers world-wide makes strategy planning necessary. The emphasis is on locating, selecting, evaluating and using sources, on finding out what is locally available and what is kept in central Scottish archives. The book is designed to help those who are starting out on the ancestral trail and also to point the way to new roads of research for those who have already gone some way, including students on genealogical courses.

Guidance is given on how to start out, on keeping records and making a research plan. In the second section, the topics are birth, marriage and death - looking at the core sources of statutory registers, census returns and parish registers and showing how important information can also be found in other records relating to these ‘facts of life’. ‘Profiling the ancestors’ views the family from three aspects – ‘Where did they live?’ ‘When did they live?’ and ‘What did they do?’ Answers to these questions provide leads into a wide range of sources which can be used in tracking down the forebears, give clues for further research and put flesh on the ancestral bones. The final section gives help in the often daunting task of understanding Scottish legal documents.

Contents
• List of maps and diagrams
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• I Introduction
• II Starting research
• III From birth to death
• IV Profiling the ancestors
• V Understanding legal documents
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index