Scottish Surname

Scottish Surname, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Working with Scottish Ancestors

I kept dumping papers all over my office, so I brought everything down to the kitchen yesterday to get it organized and to start the process of transcribing and analyzing the birth, marriage and death certificates plus the census records that I have been gathering over the past five years. It is good that images can be saved, printed and are archived once purchased.


The census INDEX at Ancestry.com is a help to making sure that I have the right family. With so many people, both male and female with the same names in my Scottish family, working through three generations is harder than five generations of my New England ancestors.


ScotlandsPeople is not going to be providing images to Ancestry.com as they are selling them on their Web site. You buy credits with your credit card and then you start searching.


To view the results of your search costs 1 credit per page. But, you can print those and study them if you aren't sure. If you've done your homework with the index, you can narrow searches down more.


Viewing each "hit" cost five credits. But, when you have the right one it is rewarding.


The book that is standing up in this photo answered one of my questions. Who was the "registrar" listed on the B, M, and D's? It seems that the doctor or the  clergy school master (people who had education) filled out the form, the person who was present, signed it (yes, those are the signatures of my ancestors) and then, they took it to the Registrar.


The great thing is that the family all seemed to migrate to Dalbeattie. This means the Registrar and the doctor/clergy probably knew each other.


I have made my own recording sheets so I can build a timeline. It is slow work.


By the way, recording the vital records was the law.