Tracing Your Scottish Family History »

Anthony Adolph is a professional genealogist, writer and broadcaster. He has written many articles for the genealogical press and appeared on the Discovery Channel's Ancestor Hunters.

Ryan Tubridy is a leading TV personality in the UK.

A thorough guide to researching your Scottish family tree.

This year, Scots worldwide will celebrate the Homecoming year to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. Amidst this gaiety, many will come to Scotland to reflect on their own family's journey, personally examine Scotland's past and research their family tree.

Tracing Your Scottish Family History guides the reader step by step, from "ask your family first" to finding, accessing and understanding obscure local records. Anthony Adolph shares insider tips on how best to search archives, libraries, publications, registers, censuses, tax rolls, debt records, churches, testaments and deeds, and he supplies all relevant contact information. Fortunately the Internet, digitized archives and DNA sampling have made it easier than ever to reconstruct a family tree.

This book's abundant archival photographs and illustrations and Adolph's engaging text describe Scottish society in detail, from the early seanachaidh (druids) and chieftains to Viking genetics. Adolph explains how critical historical events affected how and where Scottish people lived, and he gives comprehensive detail on such important topics as naming patterns, clans and tartans, heraldry, parishes, landholders and tacksmen, the Burghs, sasines, farmers and crofters, and Highland and Lowland families.

Tracing Your Scottish Family History is a comprehensive research tool and easy-to-use guide that gives an authentic historical perspective of Scotland and the lives of its people -- a core reference for researching a Scottish family tree.

Introduction

Abbreviations used in the text

Part 1: Getting started

• How to start your family tree


• Archives and organizations


• Scotlands' names


• Know your parish
  
  

• General Registration


• Censuses


• Church registers


• Religious denominations


• Testaments, deed and other useful records

• What people did


• The burghs


• Landholders


• Farmers and crofters


• Clans and tartans
  
  

• Emigration


• The origins of Scotland's people


• Genetic evidence

Useful addresses

Index

Acknowledgments & picture credits