Family and local history

Draughtsmen hard at work in 1895

The NLS holds the archive of James Bartholomew and Sons, engravers and mapmakers. As well as being a fascinating source of information about maps and mapmaking, the archive contains extensive staff records which will prove very useful to family historians. Covering the period from the 1880s to the 1970s it contains wage books and cards, in-house magazines and a collection of photographs of staff and social events. The one here shows the firm’s draughtsmen in the 1890s.

You can take a look at items from the archive in our Maps Reading Room at Causewayside – or if you can’t visit in person, you can take advantage of our remote enquiry service to ask about particular staff members.

There is also an exhibition about the archive currently running in George IV Bridge, which is well worth a visit.

Do your roots lie in the north-east of Scotland? If so, the publications of the Spalding Club and the New Spalding Club will be of interest to you.

As Scotland and Scottishness became fashionable in the wake of Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Waverley’, several antiquarian clubs and societies were founded. The first of these, the Bannatyne Club, was founded by Scott himself, but many others followed. One of these, in 1839, was the Spalding Club, founded for ‘the printing of the historical, ecclesiastical, genealogical, topographical, and literary remains of the north-eastern counties of Scotland’. It was dissolved in 1870 but but was succeeded by the NewSpalding Club and the Third Spalding Club.

The volumes contain many gems for family and local historians amongst which in the volumes of the New Spalding Club are
• ‘Territorial Soldiering in the north east of Scotland during 1759-1814’, (vol. 41, 1914)
• ‘The Records of Elgin’ (which includes kirk session records), (vols. 28 and 36, 1903 and 1908))
• ‘The Records of the County of Banff’ (vol. 43, 1922) and
• ‘Sheriff Court Records of Aberdeen’ (vol.33, 1907)

An index to all Scottish Clubs and Societies publications is available online.

Following on from Louise’s post about Company magazines, the Library also holds collections of regimental magazines from the 1890s onwards. They contain a mixture of material: obituaries, sports successes, regimental history, appointments and discharges – and photographs! The one shown is from ‘The Borderers’ Chronicle’, the quarterly journal of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (now part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland), and dates from June 1926. It shows the 1st King’s Own Scottish Borderers’ Association XI in their winning 1925-1926 season, where they lifted the Scottish Command and Logan Cups (foreground of the photo).

Our index of published memorial inscriptions has now been updated to early July 2012. Several new publications received during the last half year have been added. Next update to this list is due in December 2012. You can also check our holdings on our online catalogue, using +monumental +inscriptions +scotland as a keyword search on the simple search screen. This should bring up all of the Library’s holdings.

A person may now set out on Sunday afternoon after divine service from Edinburgh to London; may stay a whole day in London; and be again in Edinburgh on Saturday at six in the morning!  The distance from Edinburgh to London is 400 miles. — Forty years ago, it was common for people to make their will, before setting out on a London journey.  ~~ William Creech,  1793

A quote that speaks volumes about the trials of travelling more than a few miles in the mid-18th century!  William Creech was a magistrate in Edinburgh and this quote is from letters he wrote to Sir John Sinclair, who published them in 1791 as an appendix to the first Statistical Account of Scotland.  His letters are a terrifically entertaining read as well as being an interesting snapshot of some 30 years of  everyday life in Edinburgh.

The Statistical Accounts of Scotland for 1791 and 1841 have been digitised by the University of Edinburgh. It’s a free resource and all visitors can browse, read and print pages. Access the search page by scrolling down the home page to the box labelled ‘for non-subscribers’ and selecting ‘browse scanned pages’.