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.

Is there an actor or actress in your family? If the answer is yes, then ‘My ancestor worked in the theatre‘ by Alan Rushton, 2005, may be of interest to you. The book explains what records survive and where they can be found. The National Library of Scotland also has a couple of online resources that may help with your research. We have digitised a collection of theatre posters and playbills from the period 1870-1900. These depict scenes from plays or portraits of leading actors and actresses. There are also black and white photographs of some pantomime characters.

A second resource is the Scottish Theatre Programmes database. This provides details of the programmes, playbills and posters that the National Library of Scotland has in its collections. The database covers a large number of different Scottish venues from the 19th century onwards.

Do you have any sporting heroes in your family? An interesting new book explains how you can research family members who participated both as amateurs and professionals in different types of sport. ‘Sporting Ancestors: Tracing Your Family’s Athletic Past’ by Keith Gregson provides a brief history of British sport, as well as information about where to find records and how to research the subject.

There are also some mysterious sporting photographs on our website. Do you know anyone in these photographs? Please let us know if you have any more information on these individuals or the events that were taking place.

NLS has collections of photographs on a wide range of subjects. Some of these have been digitised and can be viewed on our Digital Gallery for free. Two collections which may be of particular interest to researchers are the photographs of the south side of Edinburgh, taken in 1929 by Alfred Henry Rushbrook, and the official photographs of the First World War, from the Earl Haig collection.

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).

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.

The National Library of Scotland has numerous published Rolls of Honour, which are lists of those killed in various wars. However, I found an unusual Roll of Honour in our collections recently. It is the Roll of honour, 1914-1919, Dean and St Cuthbert United Free Church. The album has a list of all the members from that particular church, both men and women, who were killed in the First World War. The rest of the volume contains black and white photographs of most of the people listed on the Roll of Honour.

Each photograph includes the name, rank and regiment of the deceased. There are British and overseas regiments represented. Most of the photographs are of men but there are two women pictured. These are Catherine Wilson, who was a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a field nursing unit, and Margaret McLean, who was in the Womens’ Army Auxiliary Corps.