Week Two: SLOW FIRES

Not the right photo of my family farm!

Slow Fires

Week 2

"Slow Fires Mak Sweet Meat"

(Take your time to achieve perfection)

["Haud Yer Wheesht!" Your Scottish Granny's Favorite Sayings by Allan Morrison

Neil Wilson Publishing (May 31, 2011)]

I knew when I started my do-over that I would get a lot of questions about my Scots so I spent some time looking for a few new-to-me resources. What I didn't expect was to have people being so nice as to help me out with my quest. 

Setting Goals
Setting goals is something I don't mind doing but as I do so I see that I am moving too fast through my "over the pond" research. So, I am only including my ancestors that DID NOT come to America.

I find that it is not as much fun as my New Englanders and their gravestones. I prepared by spending money and buying more credits at Scotland's People. I decided to purchase Elizabeth Shown Mills, book,  Evidence Explained in digital format. (look in the bookstore for it)
I struggled to get it installed correctly and all of a sudden it was working. Ah, the mysteries of Technology.

I focused my goals on my Broadfoot and Hannah lines for ONLY three generations. The digital copies and the paper copies need to be examined and transcribed. Scottish people keep repeating names over and over. Two men who are first cousins can have the exact same name based on their common grandparent.

Interviews

Fortunately, I interviewed my paternal family when I was young. They were interested in what I learned. I had fun doing it and it encouraged me to tackle learning family history. 

Scottish research is a bit different. I actually start with the women! I found marriage records to be valuable. Death records are better than American death records. 

Geography matters and I have not taken the time to study it. With our network of global genealogists, I found people to help me. They are willing to help me with the locations and sources.

As I am working with BOTH indexes and original records, I am much better at searching than I used to be. 

This week, I focused on getting the printouts from Scotlands People in order. The photo above was the beginning of the FOUR hours I spent doing that. Genealogy is not for wimps.

I spent over an hour developing a "special" naming convention for the digital files.  It will look like this:

Profile_Surname (married name)

Birth_Surname (maiden)_First name_Year

Marriage_Surname_male_female_Year

Death_Surname_Married_Surname (maiden)_Year

Baptism_Surname (maiden)_First Name_Year

Census_ Year_ Surname_Surname

I discovered one line to be Ulster-Scots, so I have new learning to do. 

Family Search. Basic Scotland Research Strategies
Ancestry.com. UK Census Collection
Family Search. Scotland Indexed Historical Records