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Family Tree Research
Tips
What Do You Need To Start?
Family history research in Scotland is quite easy in
terms of the basics. Before you start looking at the likes of Scotland’s
People you need to arm yourself with as much information as you can
about your parents and grandparents. Depending on your age you will be
as well gleaning details about your great-grandparents too.
The kind of information that is most important at this
stage are surnames, and particularly maiden names in the case of women.
It helps to have years of births, deaths and marriages but if you have a
reasonable approximation of at least one of these it is possible through
detective work to track your ancestor down.
So
Where Do You Start When You Have Some Details?
You need to set up an account with Scotland’s People on
the internet. This is a great starting point for registered events such
as censuses, births, deaths and marriages. The system works by buying
credits. The minimum you can buy is 30 credits for £6, i.e. 20p per
credit.
You can search within defined ranges for an ancestor in
any category and you will be presented with any number of possible
matches. At this stage you haven’t spent anything.
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If you believe one of the entries on the searched list is
your ancestor then it costs you 1 credit (20p) to look at more details.
If you are confident you have the right record you can spend 5 credits
(£1) to look at the record itself. This is a scanned copy, not of a
certificate, but the entry in the Register of Births, Deaths and
Marriages. On the record will appear certain information relating to
that person which could include their spouses details, their parents
details, occupations and cause of death depending on the record you are
looking at.
Perhaps you are starting to see where the expense comes
from?
"Steve's Great Grandfather (left) James Park Muir - This Photo Was Given
To Him By His Newly Discovered Cousin Tom In California, That's The
Power Of Scottish Ancestry"
So What Are The
Limitations Of Using Scotland’s
People?
Well it might now be obvious to you that to track one
piece of information alone for one ancestor is going to cost you £1.20…
assuming you guess right and it is your ancestor.
If you get two or three possible results from your search
and need to look at all three records to get the correct one, and it
will happen believe me, your £1.20 has gone up to £3.20 i.e. another 10
credits to see the other 2 entries. Paul and Steve were not making up
the figures they spent on their trees by using mainly the internet,
especially the hundreds of pounds wasted on seeing incorrect records.
They have over 600 ancestors in their trees each.
What Else Other Than Cost?
Well as mentioned elsewhere the records on the internet
are restricted and only by going to the actual General Records Office
can you get the information you need to complete the picture.
These are the dates available on the internet for the
various search categories:
Births 1855 to 1905 Fifty years
Deaths 1855 to 1955 One
hundred years
Marriages 1855 to 1930 Seventy five years
You might think these are long periods but they aren’t in
family research terms. Not only that, if you want to trace ancestors
with living relatives then births up to 1905 is highly restrictive.
What’s Your Overall Advice?
If you have lots of time and money, give it a whirl. It’s
very interesting and you will find it takes over somewhat. You will also
need some family tree software such as Family Tree Maker. It’s not
massive cost, under £50, but you cannot do without it. To track your
tree using bits of paper and post it notes means you are wasting your
money in a big way. Let the software take the pain out of the job.
Remember though, you will hit a brick wall outside of the dates
mentioned above.
Otherwise, let us do it all for you and present you with
your living history in a hard copy report, in an email ready PDF file
and also we set up your own account on Genes Reunited for you with all
of your information in it.
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Let Us Fill In The Blanks For You......
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