Scottish Highlander Photo Archive

A new resource recently launched is the Scottish Highlander Photo Archive.The SHPA offers a unique and free image database for genealogists looking to trace their Highland origins and searching for a possible vintage photograph of their ancestors.
Once complete the SHPA's archive will consist of almost 20,000 portrait images of people from the towns and villages of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Family researchers will be able to buy images or prints.The SHPA will be uploading 400 new images every month.

http://www.scottishhighlanderphotoarchive.co.uk/

National Library of Scotland :New Courses

The NLS have announced new courses for family history research in 2010. Find out what resources the Library holds to help you with your family history research.The workshop includes some practical information on how to become a Reader and a short tour of the public areas.

Getting Started at NLS

• 11 Jan  2pm
• 11 Feb 10am
• 9 March 6pm

Discovering Family History at NLS

• 12 Jan 10am
• 8   Feb  2pm
• 10 March 6pm

Book online www.nls.uk/events/booking

Highland Archive Update

The minute books of the Presbytery of Inverness have been returned from NAS in Edinburgh.Covering the period from 1739-1751 they reveal the pro-government stance the church took against the rebels at Culloden. Earlier kirk session records from 1688-1711 have also returned home. It is hoped other volumes of Inverness and other Highland presbytery minutes will come back,along with other kirk session records in the new year. Since the new archive opened there has been an increase of 130% on the same period last year. Due to the provision of proper environmental storage conditions ,more records it is hoped will be returned from Edinburgh.

Whats in the archives

• Education records from the 1860s including logbooks and admission registers for more than 300 schools
• Poor relief records,1845 to 1890
• Property valuation rolls,1868-1989
• Records of highway authorities,including Turnpike Trusts,1804-1890
• Dean of Guild and building control plans and registers,1890-1975
• Inverness Burgh records including HighCourt and Inverness County Sheriff Court process papers,17th to 19th century
• Abridgement of Sasines for counties of Argyll,Caithness,Inverness,Nairn,Ross and Cromarty and Sutherland from 1781.
• Police archives 1858-1992

Opening hours Mon-Thurs 9am-5pm or until 7.30 on Wednesday.No need to make an appointment.

ScotlandsPeople: New Images Announcement

ScotlandsPeople have announced that the images of the Statutory Register of

• Births for 1909
• Marriages for 1934
• Deaths 1959

have been made available today on line at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/


Also the January edition of Discover My Past Scotland Magazine will also be available from 29 Dec ,at http://www.discovermypast.co.uk/scotland.php

West Register House,Edinburgh

West Register House in Charlotte Square contains the West search room of the N.A.S. Built in 1811 as St.George's Church to the design by Robert Adam it was supposed to mirror another church built at the axial end of George St in St Andrews Square.This was never built and instead the Dundas Mansion of the Royal Bank of Scotland stands in its place. The church closed due to a falling congregation and severe dry rot problems and was taken over by the Scottish Record Office (now the National Archives of Scotland) in 1964.

The West Search Room contains:

• Scottish Office and Scottish Government records
• Court records of Court of Session,High Court of Justiciary after 1800
• Sheriff Court records excluding wills
• Divorces to 1983
• Rail,canal,coal,gas,electric,steel industries records
• business records
• maps and plans

Famous Scots- Sir Jackie Stewart OBE

The final identity at the Famous Scots Exhibition at the Scotlands People Centre has been announced as triple world championship racing car driver,Sir Jackie Stewart OBE. World champion in 1969,71 and 73 he was born in Dumbarton next door to his dad's garage. His roots however are firmly on the land with a gamekeeper grandfather and generations of farmers in Renfrewshire.
The exhibition is open from 9 November - 31 December.

Halloween-Scottish Witches

This memorial at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle esplanade,marks the site where over 300 women were burned  to death accused of witchcraft.One of these victims was accused of witchcraft for using a spell to sink the ship carrying King James VI as it arrived at North Berwick.

A very interesting database and electronic resource, The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft by Edinburgh University has over 4000 people listed between 1563 -1736. Information about who,where and why they were tried is available and their fate. http://www.shc.ed.ac.uk/Research/witches

Other useful publications are: The Scottish Witch hunt in Context (Studies in Early European History) Julian Goodare

Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland:James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches    Lawrence Normand

The view from North Berwick Law over the town towards the Bass Rock and the Firth of Forth