Gathering the Clans

Book excerpt: Scottish ancestry is easy to trace on the Internet, because Scotland is leading the world in making its family history records available on-line. So now, wherever you live, it is easy to grow a Scottish family tree! All the main records are already on-line: births, marriages and deaths (from 1855), old parish registers (some back as far as 1553), wills and inventories (from 1500) and ten-yearly census returns (1841-1901). In the near future, church, land, poor relief, taxation and heraldry records are expected to become available too. Whether new to family history, or to Scottish research, or to the use of the Internet for either, everyone will find this book a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide. As well as dealing with the records of those who left Scotland for a better life in North America, Australasia, or even England and Wales, the author explains the sources for ancestors who joined the forces, how DNA can help research, and the benefits of joining a family history society. Appendices provide lists of useful websites, details of charges for access to on-line records and much information unavailable elsewhere. This book will be welcomed wherever Scottish ancestry is traced, and as much by professional genealogists as by amateurs and beginners!