In the UK, we have a fascinating BBC programme called Who Do You Think You Are which takes celebrities on a journey through their family roots. The programme became a surprising hit here and the concept has since been sold to other countries, particularly the US. The stories are often very painful viewing and none more so than the recent show involving Jerry Springer, his Jewish roots in Europe leading him to the gas chambers where one of his great grandmothers died.
What does this have to do with Scotland? Well, genealogy is a subject close to my heart and I’ve been tracing my family tree for over four years now. There are many people over the world who have proud links with Scotland and there are also those who seem desperate to find some Celtic blood in their veins!
In Scotland, tracing your family tree couldn’t be any easier because we have a unique website called Scotland’s People where you can view birth, death, marriage certificates and census records online. In fact, people all over Scotland are now listed on this site, even me, but you can only view older certificates because of privacy rules.
When I began searching the records, I began with my maternal great grandmother, mainly because I knew more about her and my grandma was still alive at the time to help me. I couldn’t get her birth certificate as that year had not been released at the time but I knew the names of her parents so was able to find their marriage certificate. Scottish marriage certificates are also unique in that they record the names of the bride and groom’s parents so armed with that information, you can step back another generation.
Statutory records began in 1855 in Scotland, so to get further back, you need to rely on the Old Parish Records (OPR) which don’t give you a lot of information and families weren’t required to register births. When I began my research, the images weren’t online yet but they have been for the past year or so and I’ve been able to get back to the mid 1700s with some of my family lines.
I’m totally obsessed with genealogy and I’ve no idea what I’m going to do once I run out of lines to research. I’m particularly lucky that most of my family are Scottish and have been for generations because it makes it so much easier doing everything on one website. My maternal grandfather was English and I haven’t had as much luck tracing records for his family, mainly because there are no websites as good as Scotland’s People down there. You can find census records on Ancestry but at the end of the day, they don’t give you much information. The Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes in England tell you nothing, not even the proper date of birth or the identity of parents so they are virtually useless as far as I’m concerned.
My hope is that one day, England will provide a way of viewing certificates online much in the same way as Scotland’s People, even if it is done county by county, but until then a large part of my ancestry will remain under wraps.
Researching my family tree was a big project I shared with my grandma who sadly passed away two years ago. She was as fascinated as I was about my discoveries which meant a lot to me as no one else in the family seems to care. I love doing this so much I decided to create a website which makes everything so much easier and accessible.
If you have Scottish roots and want to find out more, then Scotland’s People is the best place to start.