Family and local history

Guest post by Trevor Thomson, Enquiries Assistant, Reference Services.

Part of the National Library of Scotland’s remit is to collect material about Scotland, by Scots or of interest to the people of Scotland by collection development and canny use of the legal deposit privilege.

From the perspective of genealogists with in an interest in Scotland, the National Library’s activities have created a vast and diverse collection of material some rare, even unique, and others more mundane but nevertheless enlightening.

One seemingly commonplace part of the collection is indexes of censuses, usually compiled and published by family history societies focussing on particular families or locations. These dedicated groups have trawled through the National Records of Scotland documents and listed all the available census details for the parishes of interest to them, usually for the years 1841, 1851 and 1861.

An example of such painstaking effort appears in the publications of Graham Maxwell Ancestry, who have recorded the information found in the first three national censuses for all the counties and parishes in the south east of Scotland. These are available to view free of charge in the Reading Rooms of the National Library and represent a useful enhancement to the records available at ScotlandsPeople. The records can be found on the library catalogue by doing an Author search for Graham Maxwell Ancestry.

But this is only a very small quantity of the material kept by the Library. The catalogue is always worth checking for a parish or village, no matter how apparently obscure, for books, pamphlets and maps that can enrich your understanding of your family’s past.

One hundred years ago, on the 4th June 1913, the suffragette Emily Davison ran in front of King George V’s horse during the Derby at Epsom Racecourse to promote the ‘Votes for Women’ cause. She died four days later of her injuries. The suffragettes in Scotland were also making themselves heard and there are a number of books in the library that provide more details on this subject. The most comprehensive history is Leah Leneman’s ‘Guid Cause: the women’s suffrage movement in Scotland’ (1995) which covers the period 1867 until after World War 1 and includes a list of Scottish women who were active suffragettes.

The movement was most prominent in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee, but there were smaller groups of suffragettes in other parts of Scotland. Examples of relevant publications include Lynn M. Brewster’s ‘Suffrage in Stirling: the struggle for women’s votes’ (2002) and Marsali Taylor’s ‘Women’s Suffrage in Shetland’ (2010).

Forcible feeding of women who were jailed was also used in Scotland. An account of this practice is given in ‘Martyrs in our Midst: Dundee, Perth and the forcible feeding of suffragettes’ by Leah Leneman (1993). This book provides detailed reports of the experiences of several women including Ethel Moorhead, Arabella Scott and Frances Gordon.

The library’s schools resource A Guid Cause might also be of interest to researchers investigating the suffragettes in Scotland, with digitised original material from the library’s collections.

Although Scotland is a small nation, it has produced a significantly high number of inventors throughout the centuries. Some of these inventors are world-renowned but others are shrouded in obscurity. The library has numerous books in its collections that tell the stories of these inventors. A selection of recent titles include ‘Scottish Firsts: a celebration of innovation and achievement’ by Elspeth Wills, Edinburgh, 2002, ‘Invented in Scotland: Scottish ingenuity and invention through the ages’ by Allan Burnett, Edinburgh, 2010 and ‘Caledonia Dreaming: 100 Scots who changed the world not always for the better!’ by John K V Eunson, London, 2010.

Some of the best known scientific inventors in Scotland have also been celebrated in the library’s online Scottish Science Hall of Fame.

The library has digitised a large amount of material from our Gaelic collections, which can be viewed for free on our Digital Gallery.

If you need to refresh your Gaelic or are just starting to learn and need some help, then there are a few books that might help. These include Angus Watson’s ‘The Essential Gaelic-English, English-Gaelic Dictionary’, Edinburgh, 2012, Michael Bauer’s ‘Blas na Gaidhlig: the practical guide to Scottish Gaelic pronunciation’, Glasgow, 2011 and George McLennan’s ‘Gaelic Alphabet: a guide to the pronunciation of Gaelic letters and words’, Glendaruel, 2009.

If you are looking for some reading material in Gaelic, then the ‘Scottish Gaelic Union Catalogue: a list of books printed in Scottish Gaelic from 1567 to 1973′ by Mary Ferguson and Ann Matheson, Edinburgh, 1984, can provide you with an extensive reading list.

Have you ever wondered what the symbols on old gravestones mean? Or why different styles of burial monuments look the way they do? The library has a number of books in its collections which provide more information on this topic. A general book, which covers graveyards over the whole of the UK, is Trevor Yorke’s ‘Gravestones, Tombs & Memorials’, Newbury, 2010, which discusses the history of burials and the different types of monument that were built.

If you want to know more about Scottish graveyards and their tombstones, then ‘Understanding Scottish Graveyards’ by Betty Willsher, Edinburgh, 2005 and ‘Researching Scottish Graveyards’ by Bruce B. Bishop, Elgin, 2010, can help further your research.

Dane Love’s ‘Scottish Kirkyards’, Stroud, 2010, provides an explanation of the role of the kirkyard within the Scottish community as well as detailing burial customs of Scotland. Hamish Brown’s ‘A Scottish Graveyard Miscellany: Exploring the Folk Art of Scotland’s Gravestones’, Edinburgh, 2008, discusses examples of graveyard art from all over Scotland.

The National Library of Scotland has just released digital copies of British military lists from the First and Second World Wars. They list all the officers who served in the British Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force from 1914-1918 and 1939-1945. They can be viewed for free on the library website.

If you are interested in the history of crime in Scotland or the stories of those involved in criminal activities, then there are a few recent publications that might help with your research. Sheila Livingstone’s ‘Confess and be Hanged: Scottish Crime and Punishment through the Ages’, Edinburgh, 2000, discusses a wide range of ‘crimes’ including adultery, fornication, smuggling, treason and witchcraft. It covers a wide timeframe and helps to show how definitions of crime have changed over time.

Books on the subject, which are specific to particular geographical areas, include Geoff Holder’s ‘Perthshire Murders’, Stroud, 2010, Malcolm Archibald’s ‘A Sink of Atrocity: Crime in 19th Century Dundee’, Edinburgh, 2012 and Jessie Sword’s ‘They Did Wrong: Public Hangings in the Angus Area 1785 to 1868′, Dundee, 2005. This latter title includes background information on the people who were hanged, as well as details of their trials and executions.

‘The Vagabond Book of Stirling: 1752-1787′ by Marie Brammeld, Stirling, 2010, was a book kept by the local authorities in Stirling. It recorded misdemeanours such as theft, breach of the peace and assualt and a list of the punishments given out to the offenders by the Magistrates of the Burgh.

There are two new additions to our Digital Gallery, both of which are free to use. The first is the ‘Biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen’, published in three volumes in 1875. The books contain biographies and engraved portraits of Scots men (and some women) mainly during the 16th to 19th centuries. The biographies discuss individuals who were prominent in the fields of medicine, religion, art and literature, politics, philosophy and the natural sciences.

The second is a collection of 20 volumes of  ‘Gazetteers of Scotland, 1803-1901′. These provide a comprehensive geographical encyclopedia of Scotland during in the 19th century. They include information on parishes, towns and counties in Scotland, as well as historical and geographical details on each location.

The fire service has an illustrious history in Scotland. The library has a number of books in its collections which provide detailed histories of various brigades. These include: ‘150 years of firefighting in Tayside, 1835-1985′, Liverpool, 1985; ‘The History of the Lothian & Borders Fire Brigade’, Edinburgh, 1985; and ‘Ready, aye ready: Dundee Fire Brigade, 1835-1939′, Glasgow, 1939.

Alexander Reid has written ‘Aye ready! the history of Edinburgh Fire Brigade, the oldest municipal brigade in Britain’, Edinburgh, 1974, while Alan Forbes has more recently published ‘Everyday Heroes: the 30 year story of Strathclyde Fire Brigade’, Edinburgh, 2005.

If you are interested in the Scottish Fire Services training facility in Gullane, East Lothian then Beryl Robinson’s ‘From Golfers to Firefighters…where hope is unbroken: the story of Gullane’s Marine Hotel transformed to the Scottish Fire Services College’, Gullane, 2005, may provide further information. If you want to find out more about the creator of the British Fire Service then the book to read is Brian Henham’s ‘True Hero: the life and times of James Braidwood, father of the British Fire Service’, Romford, 2000.

Finally, the amusingly named ‘Scooshers’ by Andrew F Anderson, Gloucester, 1993, tells the story of Glasgow Fire Service.