Scottish Family History
If you are one of the millions of people who have Scottish ancestors and you are looking for information on how to research your Scottish family history then the basic information on researching your family history as outlined on the find my family history page still apply to tracing your Scottish family history but we shall focus on some of the unique information and tools associated with tracing Scottish ancestors.
Scotlands People
The main method of researching you Scottish family history online is to use the Scotlandspeople website. Scotlandspeople is the official Scottish government source of genealogical data and has a hugh database of records dating back as far as 1513. The database has over 80 million records including Scottish birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, census returns, coats of arms, wills and testaments and Catholic Parish records.
Scotlandspeople does offer some free searches into some of the records it contains such as wills and testaments and coats of arms but if you want to search their births, deaths and marriage certificates or their census returns then you will need to pay for this. The cost for 30 page credits is £6 which is roughly $11 and so is reasonably cheap and certainly far cheaper than visiting Scotland if you stay in Canada, Australia or the United States.
However, if you do happen to be planning to visit Scotland you should visit the Scotlandspeople Centre in Edinburgh where for £10 a day you can access the research rooms and browse all the databases for free including birth, death and marriage certificates from the last 100 years which are not yet available online for privacy reasons.
Scotlandspeople does offer some free searches into some of the records it contains such as wills and testaments and coats of arms but if you want to search their births, deaths and marriage certificates or their census returns then you will need to pay for this. The cost for 30 page credits is £6 which is roughly $11 and so is reasonably cheap and certainly far cheaper than visiting Scotland if you stay in Canada, Australia or the United States.
However, if you do happen to be planning to visit Scotland you should visit the Scotlandspeople Centre in Edinburgh where for £10 a day you can access the research rooms and browse all the databases for free including birth, death and marriage certificates from the last 100 years which are not yet available online for privacy reasons.
Scottish Family Military History
If any of your Scottish ancestors were casualties during either of the World Wars or any subsequent military campaigns then a good place to search for further information is the Scottish National War Memorial (SNWM). The SNWM is based in Edinburgh Casle but also has a free website which allows you to search the roll of honour to find out his rank, regiment, date of death and other information. It also has a link to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which lets you know where your ancestor is buried.
Scottish Family History Societies
There are a number of Scottish Family History Societies and Associate member societies who focus on the history of Scottish men and women. For a list of these Scottish societies you can visit the Scottish Association of Family History Societies or do a search on Google if you are looking for a society in a particular part of the country.