The National Library of Scotland’s Emigration Stories Resource

Leave a Comment / By

The National Library of Scotland has a website called “Scots Abroad: Stories of Scottish Emigration.” There are six stories of Scottish emigration that range from the 1770s to the 1930s.

You can choose to read or listen to extracts from letters. There are image thumbnails which you can click on to view larger images.

There are tabs that relate to:

“Preparing to go” which looks at why they left Scotland, where they went and other resources to help you with your research.

“Arriving and settling in” looks at the transportation taken to the new world, what occupations they undertook and how they settled into their new way of life.

“Building communities” examines how the emigrants rebuilt their lives in their new homes. They look at basic necessities, spiritual needs and Scottish and local customs among other topics.

“Keeping identity” looks at how the Scots kept their cultural traditions in their new homes. They tended to idealize their homeland and some returned home.

The last section is “Resources” which provides printed and online resources to help you continue your research.

This is a website you may want to check when researching the reasons behind your Scottish ancestor’s emigration and how they created a life in their new home.

©2011 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved

Ruth’s Recommendations

Leave a Comment / By

Here are my favourite blog posts from this past week.

The blog for the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society had a post written by Mike More called “Volunteering Outside the Box” which laments the lack of volunteers to help run local genealogy societies. This is something which I think all organizations that rely on volunteers to run them are facing at this time.

The NLI Blog has a posted called “The Spectre of Blood” written by Abigail Rieley. It looks at crime reporting in newspapers, in particular murder. The National Library of Ireland has a large collection of newspapers on microfilm. Newspapers are a wonderful wealth of information. I have researched the newspapers on microfilm in the NLI for a murder relating to my Toppin family. You can read more about it here.

TheWildGeese.com…Irish Genealogy and Family History Blog had a post this week called “Irish Custer Writer Discovers 7th Calvary Ancestor!” which is about Robert Doyle’s research into soldiers of Irish origins who fought in Custer’s Last Stand. Imagine his surprise when he found a collateral family link to this very event.

Paula Stuart-Warren of Paula’s Genealogical Eclectica blog had a post entitled “Budget Choices in Life and in Family History” where she looks at how we all have to budget our finances but there are still ways to accomplish some of our research goals without breaking the bank.

There is a new blog called The Paperless Genealogist. His tag line on the blog is “Join me on my quest to reclaim my office and save some trees as I attempt to eliminate as much genealogy paper clutter as I can from my office.” I will be following this blog with interest.

Chris Paton on his British GENES (GEnealogy News and EventS) blog had a post called “How many Scottish church denominations?” This is something that everyone who does research in Scotland needs to know. Many people have told me they can’t find their ancestors in the registers of the Church of Scotland. They are not aware of the other denominations to be found in Scotland or of the secessions from the Established Church. “Burleigh’s chart of Scottish Churches” is another useful document to have in your Scottish research file.

Are there any postings in the last week that you think need to be on this list? Let me know in the comments below.

©2011 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved

National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) and Family History

2 Comments / By

Last year I found out that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and thought it would be a great idea for someone who is trying to write their family history stories.

The idea behind NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in a month’s time. Writing a novel is not something many of us are looking to do at the moment but writing family history stories is something that we want to accomplish.

NaNoWriMo could be the impetus we need to get started writing those stories. The idea of writing 50,000 words might be a little daunting but you could make that number 10,000 words. You could start writing your outlines and ideas down now so that you have a starting point for the first of November.

I am working on a local history project that would fit in beautifully with this idea. So that is going to be my focus for the month of November. I am going to write my local history project and get a rough draft done by the end of the month. The idea is not to have a book completed and ready for publishing by the end of the month it is to get the project started.

Writing your family history stories is a great way to find any gaps in your research. You think you have it all done and when you go to write it up you realize that there is some missing information.

I am putting a challenge out there to everyone who wants to write their family history. Use the month of November and NaNoWriMo to get you started. Let me know how you are getting along with the project. I will post updates on the Blair Archival Research Facebook page to let you know how I am getting along.

Now let’s get writing!

©2011 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved