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Archiver > GENCMP > 2000-12 > 0975803640


From: Stuart Thomson <>
Subject: Re: Scottish records
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2000 00:34:00 +0000


In article <>, Singhals <>
writes
>Stuart Thomson wrote:
>>
>> In article <9058oi$qs6$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>, David Hewitt <
>> gcomed.demon.co.uk> writes
>> >Can anyone give me a few tips on how to use the net to research my Scottish
>> >ancestors? I already know about the Scottish Record Office site - is there
>> >anything else of particuar help?
>> >
>> >
>> Yes, by joining a family history society or societies covering the
>> area(s) where most o your ancestors lived.
>
>Excellent advice, I'm sure, but back up a step --
>
>I aearch a name that is associated with ALL the clans and which
>appears in every Shire in Scotland; documents on the US side give
>only "Scotland" in the early 1700s -- how please does one
>establish what those areas ARE?
>
>What steps are needed for that determination?
>
>Cheryl


I was answering what I took to be a general query by someone who was not
very familiar with what the Internet had to offer. So much depends on
where one starts from.

If the usual procedures of working back step by step making use of
registers, then censuses and OPRs are followed it usually leads to some
knowledge of the area to be concentrated upon.

In my own case none of my Thomson ancestors appear in the Old parish
Records (OPRs) because they belonged to a seceding congregation, but
following registration records back led to the location and by using
midwife's records, censuses, tax records and minute books of meetings it
was possible to get back to 1676. However you would not expect to be
able to do this on the Internet.

If one does not have any idea of the area to be searched in any country
that's a big problem, but I took the query to be about what was
available on the Net.

--
Stuart Thomson
at Christchurch Dorset
where two rivers meet

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