Family and local history

I came across the Scottish Emigration Database recently which is a project based at the University of Aberdeen. It contains the records of over 21,000 passengers who travelled from Scotland for non-European ports between 1890 and 1960.

At NLS we have rich collections of material relating to the emigration of Scots which complement resources like these. Our Scots Abroad web feature tells six stories of emigration from Scotland between the 1770s and the 1930s as well as containing information and links to other emigration resources. Also, our Scots Abroad databases give details of material relating to the lives of Scots overseas and the variety of reasons they traveled abroad.

Our colleagues in the Modern Scottish Collections department recently highlighted this journal in their blog. Produced by the Scottish Genealogy Society, the articles in this journal are indexed in the National Library of Scotland’s freely accessible database Scottish Bibliographies Online. You can read more about this in the post ‘Scottish family history research using Scottish Bibliographies Online’ in the Modern Scottish Collections blog.

A recent enquiry reminded me of the usefulness of company magazines for both family and local history research. Many businesses and industrial companies produced in-house publications aimed at staff and customers and the Library has rich and varied collections of these. The example shown here describes itself as ‘An illustrated social magazine for the workers and staff of the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company, Limited’. As well as providing a snapshot of the shipbuilding industry at the time in the form of technical articles about ship design and commentary on the state of the industry, it also chronicles the achievements of the many shipyard sports clubs such as the football, cricket and badminton teams. This is typical of this type of publication which often contain articles about company events, sometimes including photographs, as well as articles about individual staff achievements.  Coal, the magazine of the former National Coal Board in the UK, is another example. The articles in this publication range from accounts of mining disasters to descriptions and photos of company events such as colliery brass band competitions. If you have a family member who worked for a particular company then you may want to check our catalogue http://www.nls.uk/catalogues to see if we hold any publications relating to that company.

Three men in working clothes around 1870

If you’re interested in family history then we run a monthly Readers’ Workshop’ called ‘Discovering family history’, where you can find out about the resources we hold to help you with your family research. These include directories, gravestone inscriptions, newspapers and census records, to name just a few of the categories covered in the workshop which are useful for family history research.

The workshop also includes some practical information on using the Library for those that are new to our services. It’s run at a different time each month and you can find out more information, including booking details, at Readers’ Workshops.

Do come along, the workshops are open to everyone and they’re free!