New Statistical Accounts of Scotland website launched

A press release from the University of Edinburgh's EDINA service:

We are delighted to announce the launch of the refreshed Statistical Accounts of Scotland online service at http://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk.

As well as a new intuitive and streamlined interface, the redeveloped service features improved search, transcripts and metadata, making it easier to find relevant information within the accounts.

The new service offers:

* Interactive historical maps
* Contextual narratives that give more information on the accounts and their history
* Parish and county pages listing all related sections within the volumes
* High resolution images

Our not-for-profit subscription service has been enhanced with additional features designed to make it easy to work with the historical texts:

* View your personal search history
* Tag pages, sections and images with keywords
* Annotate pages, sections and images with longer notes
* Browse and filter personal tags and annotations

Over the next few weeks we will publish a series of blog posts giving more details on the new features: you can follow these at http://statacc.blogs.edina.ac.uk/

COMMENT: The Statistical Accounts of Scotland site is the first platform you should bookmark after ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) if doing Scottish based ancestral research. The site contains two detailed descriptions from the 1790s and 1830s/1840s of every Church of Scotland parish, as recorded by the minister, providing essential background context onto which you can paint your ancestral stories.

From an initial exploration, the new site will take some time to get used to. On the one hand, I very much like the searchable interactive map, but I do find the pages take a lot more effort to scroll down through with such large pictures and such little boxes of text. 

Note that the original version of the website is still accesible at http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public, though this will be phased out next year.

(With thanks to Nicola Osborne and Lisa Otty)

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Beginner's Guide to British and Irish Genealogy, A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.

Statistical Accounts of Scotland site redevelopment

The good folks at EDINA have announced via their blog that their essential Statistical Accounts of Scotland portal is to be redeveloped and relaunched in late summer 2016. As well as an improved infrastructure the team is also creating a new interface, and has suggested that if anyone is interested in helping to beta test the service they should get in touch. The full blog post is available at http://statacc.blogs.edina.ac.uk/2015/12/18/182/.

By way of a quick explanation, the Statistical Accounts are the service I suggest that everyone doing Scottish research looks at once they have had a play with the ScotlandsPeople hosted vital records and censuses, because they contain gazetteer like accounts of each Scottish parish, as drawn up by the resident Church of Scotland ministers, in the 1790s and again the 1830s/
1840s. Each account provides information on the religious make-up of each parish, topographical information, details on industry, landowners, history, and just about anything else that might give you an idea of what parish life was like at the times in question. The site is currently hosted at http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public - well worth bookmarking for Boxing Day if you fancy a fun read!

There's a bit more on the accounts in an old blog post at http://chrispatonsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/statistical-accounts-of-scotland.html.

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including my recently released Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.

County Surveys of Great Britain project developments

I've been kindly contacted by Nicola Osborne of the EDINA project at the University of Edinburgh to be informed of two major developments with her project. Here they are in Nicola's own words:

Last week we launched our County Surveys Online Bibliographic Tool. This is part of the final outputs from our County Surveys pilot project, which has been looking at "Considered Digitisation" - an approach to identify what has been digitised already and where there there are particularly gaps to target new digitisation work.

The Bibliographic tool is a bibliography of the 1793-1817 County Surveys of Great Britain and it also includes facilities to search for County Surveys from a variety of digitised text providers (e.g. Hathi, NLS, Google Books etc). You can identify what has been digitised and made available, and you can click through to access those digitised copies where available.

There's a blog post about this here: http://countysurveys.blogs.edina.ac.uk/2015/06/24/search-tool/

And you can access the tool here: http://countysurveys.edina.ac.uk/surveys/search

There are also some County Survey volumes being digitised as part of this work which will come later on in the project, along with some reporting and recommendations around digitisation practices.

It would be great to help get word out about this resource as we think that that ability to quickly identify and locate copies is likely to be of particular interest to genealogists and local historians. Because this is a demonstrator/pilot tool we are really keen to hear all comments, feedback etc. So if you (or any of your readers/clients/etc) have any questions or feedback on the tool or the project my colleague, Lisa Otty (cc'd), is the best person to speak to.

Nicola has also informed me that there will also be another Statistical Accounts of Scotland show at The Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas at this year's Fringe Festival! For further details visit http://thestand.co.uk/fringe/show/1834/back_to_the_statistical_future. The show will be based around the Second Accounts (1834-45) and will draw parallels between some of the social circumstances now and then, from library provision/staffing to schools to disability benefit. Again, from Nicola:

There are some really interesting and challenging issues around what existed then, what cuts and policy changes mean for our current/recent services, and what that might mean we end up with. So I'm wanting to provoke discussion on the role of the state - and communities and others - to support individuals, and to get some discussion going on how we might get "back to the future" in the sense of moving on from 1845 style social policies...

The show is on Wednesday 26th August at The Stand in the Square. Sounds fascinating!

(With thanks to Nicola!)

Chris

The latest British GENES podcast is available at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/podcasts.html. For details on my latest book Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, and my other genealogy guide books, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.

County Surveys of Great Britain 1793-1817 may be digitised

There has been a great announcement from the University of Edinburgh's EDINA service, which makes accessible the Statistical Accounts of Scotland from the 1790s and the 1830s/1840s at http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public&passback=. EDINA is currently contemplating the possibilities of digitising and uploading to the internet the County Surveys of Great Britain from 1793-1817.

From the announcement:

The County Surveys recorded comprehensive information on the agriculture, rural economy and political economy of each county in Great Britain between 1793 and 1817. They provide a unique insight into the innovation and agricultural improvement during a significant period in the making of Britain as the first industrial nation. Despite its remarkable historical interest, this resource is currently under-used because very few surveys are available in digital format, and printed copies are difficult to locate and access.

‘The County Surveys 1793 – 1817: Exploring Considered Digitisation’ aims to explore how the creation of a virtual collection can unleash the potential of the County Surveys for discovery. The project is funded by EDINA, University of Edinburgh and scheduled for completion in July 2015.

For the full announcement visit http://statacc.blogs.edina.ac.uk/2015/05/18/the-county-surveys-1793-1817-exploring-considered-digitisation/.

Further details on the project can be accessed via a dedicated blog for the project at http://countysurveys.blogs.edina.ac.uk.

Chris

The latest British GENES podcast is available at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/podcasts.html. For details on my latest book Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, and my other genealogy guide books, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.

Statistical Accounts of Scotland blog launches

The University of Edinburgh's EDINA department has launched a new blog detailing items and finds from the Statistical Accounts of Scotland. It can be found at http://statacc.blogs.edina.ac.uk/.

The first two Statistical Accounts were recorded in each Scottish parish in the 1790s and the 1830s/1840s, with a third account carried out in the 20th century, and a recent fourth version for East Lothian. The first two are digitised and freely available at http://edina.ac.uk/stat-acc-scot/. They carry an enormous amount of information on he make up of each parish, including religious affiliations of inhabitants, employment available, landowners details, history and more. There's a bit more about them in a blog post I wrote four years ago, accessible at http://walkingineternity.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/statistical-accounts-of-scotland.html, but the main site is the place to visit for all the background!

(With thanks to Nicola Osborne)

Chris

Now available for UK research is the new second edition of the best selling Tracing Your Family History on the Internet: A Guide for Family Historians, whilst my new book British and Irish Newspapers is also now out. And please consider purchasing the great new version of Caledonia by The Libations at 79p via www.caledonia2014.com - all profits go to help fund Scottish foodbanks

Coming Soon - County Surveys of Great Britain & Fieldtrip GB

The University of Edinburgh's EDINA datacentre has a couple of major projects on the go just now, of potential interest to genealogists across Britain.

Following on from its successful digitisation of The Statistical Accounts of Scotland (http://edina.ac.uk/stat-acc-scot/), the centre is now working on the digitisation and presentation of The County Surveys of Great Britain 1793-1817 (which, like the Statistical Accounts, were also commissioned by Sir John Sinclair), which will provide "comprehensive information on the agriculture, rural economy and political economy of each county in Great Britain between 1793 and 1817", to quote EDINA's latest newsletter. The project will take 18 months, and results will be made available through the Statistical Accounts service already up and running.

The second developments is Fieldtrip GB - a new app "that will support teaching, learning and research by making it easier to collect data in the field". This will allow you to save maps to a device and to collect data for field trips, such as images, audio, text and GPS tracks. You can create bespoke forms for your research trip and store results to the cloud. There is a dedicated blog at http://fieldtribgb.blogs.edina.ac.uk.

(With thanks to the good folk at EDINA)

Chris

My new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, is now available from Pen and Sword. For my other genealogy books, please visit  http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html; whilst for my online Scottish based genealogy courses please visit the Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd site.