bringing indexes to your computer, it has indexed the indexes, making the searching process vastly easier than ever before. And, because it’s now possible to view images of the original documents online, people across the globe can now trace their Scottish ancestors properly. This has encouraged many new people to start exploring their Scottish roots.
Take a few minutes to explore the site’s extra features. There are fairly detailed explanations of the records, and ‘Research Tools’ contains many helpful features, such as tips on reading old handwriting and understanding old money.
The calendar
Up to 1582 Britain and Europe used Julius Caesar’s calendar, with years starting on Lady Day, 25 March, but that year many Continental countries started using the calendar of Pope Gregory the Great, with years starting on 1 January. King James VI and I ordered the adoption of the Gregorian calendar starting on 1 January 1599/1600, and now that the year started in January, not March, New Year quickly absorbed many surviving pagan Winter Solstice traditions, creating the great Scots New Year festival of Hogmanay. Although James became king of England and Ireland in 1603, the calendar there did not change until 1752.
Dealing with written records
Reading old handwriting is called palaeography. Old ways of writing, or simply bad handwriting, present a real problem for genealogists. You can learn to read the former, but ghastly scrawls can defeat the most seasoned professional. For old hands, see G.G. Simpson’s Scottish Handwriting 1150-1650 (Tuckwell Press, 1973) and A. Rosie’s Scottish Handwriting 1500-1700: a self-help pack (SRO and SRA, 1994).
www.scottishhandwriting.com offers online tuition on old handwriting, and there are palaeography classes available elsewhere, especially at the ScotlandsPeople Centre.
Older records in Latin can be off-putting, but you can always pay a translator or experienced genealogist. Good guides to Latin include R.A. Latham’s Revised Medieval Latin Word-list from British and Irish Sources (OUP, 1965), and there is a useful list of Latin words used in genealogical documents at www.genuki.org.uk. Here are some basics that appear in legal documents:
| • | Annus | year |
| • | Dies | day |
| • | Eod. die. | same day |
| • | Est | is |
| • | Filia | daughter |
| • | Filius | son |
| • | Inter alia | amongst others |
| • | Mater | mother |
| • | Matrimonium | married |
| • | Mensis | month |
| • | Mortuus | died |
| • | Natus | born |
| • | Nuptium | married |
| • | Obit | died |
| • | Parochia | parish |
| • | Pater | father |
| • | Pro indiviso | undivided |
| • | Qua | as |
| • | Sepultat | buried |
| • | Uxor | wife |
| • | Vide | see |
| • | Vidua | widow |
This extract from a nineteenth-century sasine or land grant is relatively easy to read: earlier documents can be harder to follow.
Knowing what a document is likely to say can help enormously. Examples of old documents, highlighting where to find the genealogically relevant parts, are in P. Gouldesborough’s Formulary of Old Scots Legal Documents (Edinburgh, 1985).
If you’re stuck over a word you cannot read, look for others in the document that you can. By doing so you can work out how the writer formed each letter, and you can use this technique to decipher otherwise illegible words.
CHAPTER 2 Archives and organizations
Before you start research amongst records, it’s sensible to have a good idea of where to find the records you will need, online or on the ground. Here is an overview.
Edinburgh
Many of Scotland’s records are found in Edinburgh. The main port of call there is the new ScotlandsPeople Centre, opened in 2008, and housed in two adjoining, venerable institutions at the end of Princes Street, New Register House (home of the General Register Office or GROS), and General Register House. The Centre has several searchrooms, including disabled access, and offers a free two-hour ‘taster session’ each day for newcomers.
Visitors are allocated a computer terminal for a fixed daily fee (currently £10), or you can pay an hourly rate for expert help. Via the terminals you can search broadly the same material that is available on www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk – General Registration records, censuses, Old Parochial Registers (OPRs), testaments and wills to 1901, and the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings (not yet on the website). The terminals can