Product Description

This is a new edition of the bestselling guide to this increasingly popular pursuit.Scotland has the best-maintained records and facilities of any country in the world for undertaking family research, and now that the National Archives of Scotland are available online they can be consulted by anyone from whatever country."Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors" is the National Archives' official guide and is written in an accessible style from the unique perspective of a custodian of the records. It details all the latest internet developments, including a chapter on family history on the web. It also points to more traditional resources, explaining step by step how to research records of births, marriages and wills.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #264803 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
This is a new edition of the bestselling guide to this increasingly popular pursuit.Scotland has the best-maintained records and facilities of any country in the world for undertaking family research, and now that the National Archives of Scotland are available online they can be consulted by anyone from whatever country."Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors" is the National Archives' official guide and is written in an accessible style from the unique perspective of a custodian of the records. It details all the latest internet developments, including a chapter on family history on the web. It also points to more traditional resources, explaining step by step how to research records of births, marriages and wills.

About the Author
The National Archives of Scotland is the government department responsible for the custody and preservation of the records of the government of Scotland.

Customer Reviews

A comprehensive guide, but not entirely up to date for resources outside the National Archives of Scotland
The title of this book is perhaps slightly misleading, as it does very much concentrate on the resources of the National Archives of Scotland. Although the subtitle does explain this - "a guide to ancestry research in the National Archives of Scotland" - this does not appear on the cover.

The book is written by staff of the NAS, and its resources are described in detail. However, resources elsewhere receive rather minimal treatment, and the information is not entirely up to date. For example:

The address of Shetland Archives has changed, but this has not been updated. The relocation has been in progress for some time, and the archives reopened in early 2007, having been closed during the relocation. This information was available long before the 4th edition of the book was published, and should have been picked up.

It is stated that the Family Records Centre in London does not offer Internet searching of its indexes, which is true. However, these can be searched online through a variety of commercial services, such as Ancestry, Findmypast and several others, and this should have been mentioned. In fact, the Family Records Centre is already partially closed and will be closing for good in a few months, but this may not have been known at the time that the book was published.

In the list of useful books, the book Tracing your Ancestors at the Public Record Office (which became the National Archives in 2003) is listed, but this was published in its 5th edition (with authors Cox and Padfield, as stated) in 1999, and the book is now in its 7th edition (2006) entitled Tracing your Ancestors at the National Archives, by Amanda Bevan. This should have been checked and updated.

Overall an excellent book, but more attention could have been paid to the currency of information relating to sources outside the National Archives of Scotland.