Scottish Roman Catholic registers join FindmyPast

FindmyPast (www.findmypast.com) has added over a thousand Scottish Roman Catholic registers:

Scotland Roman Catholic Parish Registers Browse
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/scotland-roman-catholic-parish-registers-browse

Browse through more than 1000 volumes of Roman Catholic sacramental registers of baptisms, marriages and burials spanning the years 1736 to 1942. This extensive collection contains records from all eight Scottish dioceses: Aberdeen, Argyll & The Isles, Dunkeld, Galloway, Glasgow, Motherwell, St Andrews & Edinburgh, and Paisley.

(NB: I'm currently in Crete so have not had a chance to compare what has been released with what is also already available and searchable on ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), also sourced from the Scottish Catholic Archives. The ScotlandsPeople presentation also include records from the UK wide Bishopric of the Forces).

Also released are some further English records:

Lancashire wills & probate 1457-1858
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/lancashire-wills-and-probate-1457-1858
Lancashire wills & probate 1457-1858 is an index of more than 229,000 Lancashire records that will enable you to determine whether your ancestor's probate papers have survived through the centuries. Until 1857, the Church of England was responsible for administering wills and probate cases. These wills would have been proved in ecclesiastic courts. The records cover Amounderness, Copeland, Furness, Kendal, and Lonsdale deaneries. This collection has been created by both Findmypast, which transcribed original records from the Lancashire Record Office, and the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, which provided index work.

Leicestershire Baptisms
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/leicestershire-baptisms
Over 54,000 new records have been added to Leicestershire Baptisms. The new additions consist of Bishops transcripts from around the county that date back as far as 1538. Bishop's transcripts were abbreviated copies of the parish records sent to the Diocesan bishop several times a year. They can be an invaluable source of genealogical information when the original record has not survived.

Leicestershire Marriages
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/leicestershire-marriages
More than 22,000 Bishops transcripts of Leicestershire parish marriages registers have been added to our collection of Leicestershire Marriages. The collection spans the years 1537 to 1931 and covers more 300 parishes across the country.

Leicestershire Burials
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/leicestershire-burials
Over 39,000 bishops transcripts of parish burial records have been added this week. The records span over 400 years from 1538 to the 1991 and cover 279 parishes. These records will allow you discover when your ancestor died, their age at death, place of burial, date of burial and parent's names.

Leicestershire Parish Records Browse
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/leicestershire-parish-records-browse
13,000 volumes of Leicestershire parish baptisms, marriages and burials have been added to this collection. Spanning from 1538 to 1916, these records cover more than 300 parishes.

British Newspapers
http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search/british-newspapers
More than 993,000 new articles and 12 brand new titles have been added to our collection of historic British Newspapers:

Illustrated War News
Exmouth Journal
Saffron Walden Weekly News
Lowestoft Journal
Woolwich Gazette and Greenwich and Deptford Chronicle
Newbury Weekly News and General Advertiser
Market Harborough Advertiser and Midland Mail
Eastbourne Herald
Stornoway Gazette and West Coast Advertiser
Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News
Morecambe Guardian
Clitheroe Advertiser and Times

Further details are available via the links.

Chris

My next 5 week Scottish Research Online course commences Sept 11th 2017 - details at www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. For my genealogy guide books, visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html, whilst details of my research service are at www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk. Further content is also published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES.

ScotlandsPeople restrictions on Scottish Catholic records

Take note if you are planning to do research into the Scottish Roman Catholic records available on ScotlandsPeople. Something I had not noticed until I tried to use them today is that the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk) has placed restrictions on the Catholic register indexes that are accessible on the ScotlandsPeople database at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh and at other genealogy centres.

Until recently, it was possible to access the following collections on ScotlandsPeople at the centres:

1703-1992 baptisms and births
1736-1934 marriages and banns
1742-1955 deaths and burials
Other events

Today at the Glasgow Genealogy Centre, I got the following via the ScotlandsPeople database:

1703-1916 baptisms and births
1703-1941 marriages and banns
1703-1966 deaths and burials
1703-1916 other events


Clearly the year ranges all starting in 1703 are nonsense - and the end points now match the closure periods as respected by the statutory birth, marriage and death records collections on the online version of the website.

Just to make things more bewildering, the new online version of ScotlandsPeople at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk does provide access to the Catholic indexes beyond these closure period dates - but not to images of the actual records, which can only be viewed for the earlier records. For the most recent records, there is no option to purchase an 'offical extract', as with the statutory records (most likely because these are not NRS records, but registers sourced from the Scottish Catholic Archives) - you just can't view them at all.

So if you are planning to visit Edinburgh, or any of the other genealogy centres offering access to ScotlandsPeople for a daily fee of £15, be advised that the online website is currently now the only place where you will get access to indexes of the more recent records.

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.

Latest edition of Broadsheet now available

Issue 34 of Broadsheet, the magazine of the Scottish Council of Archives, is now freely available at www.scottisharchives.org.uk/magazine/current.

In this issue copyright reform and archives accreditation are looked at, there's an update on the Public Records (Scotland) Act of 2011, a feature on Lothian Health Services Archive's recognition by UNESCO for its HIV/AIDS collection, recent Scottish legislation of interest to archivists, an update on the Heritage Lottery Funded Opening Up Scotland's Archives traineeship scheme, ancestral tourism, and a celebration of Stirling Council Archives, now forty years old.

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.

What is the Scottish Archive Network?

Last Friday I attended the latest AGM of the Scottish Archive Network Ltd charitable trust, having been appointed one of the directors of the trust in 2013. The aims of the body are to "advance, promote, maintain, improve and encourage the education of the public in the education of the public in the appreciation of Scotland's history and in particular its documentary heritage by providing public access to Scotland's archives".

One of the key ways that we are trying to do this is in supporting the Scottish Council of Archives with the Scotland Online Catalogue Project (http://www.scottisharchives.org.uk/scotlandonline), which is attempting to modernise our access provision to online catalogues for many archives across Scotland. This is still a work in progress, but the long term purpose of the project is to hopefully update the holdings of, and eventually replace, the Scottish Archive Network catalogue available at www.scan.org.uk/catalogue.

We still have some way to go, but until this is achieved, the SCAN catalogue remains one of the most important workhorses for Scottish based genealogical research. Established in 1999, at present there are currently about 59,000 catalogue entries from some 52 archive based repositories across Scotland that are accessible on the site, of which some 28,000 are at fonds (collection) level, and about 18,500 at file or item level (i.e. the sort of description at which a person's name might pop up, a much more useful but more time consuming means to index a record). The site is at present maintained by the National Records of Scotland (www.nrscotland.gov.uk).

Equally valuable are the generic resources available on the main SCAN website at www.scan.org.uk, including glossaries of old Scots terms, currency converters, and various other useful tools and digitised collections 

So if you are carrying out Scottish research, in addition to using the National Records of Scotland's own dedicated catalogue at http://catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk/nrsonlinecatalogue/welcome.aspx, it is always well worth searching the SCAN catalogue also for any research enquiries.

Good hunting! 

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.

Scots at Work exhibition in Edinburgh

The National Records of Scotland is hosting an exhibition entitled Scots at Work, within General Register House, Edinburgh, from 29th April - 21st June 2013 (except 6th May), open Monday to Friday: 9am – 4.30pm. The display is part of the Working Archive awareness campaign championed by the Scottish Council on Archives.

For further details visit www.nas.gov.uk/about/130429.asp and www.scottisharchives.org.uk.

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.

Latest Broadsheet now online

The latest issue of Broadsheet, the magazine of the Scottish Council on Archives, is now available at www.scottisharchives.org.uk/news/magazine/current. Included in this month's topics is an interview with Hazel Lauder, Information and Records Manager at North Ayrshire Council, and articles on the Glucksman Conservation Centre at the University of Aberdeen, and the Scottish Brewing Archive Association.

(With thanks to Wendy Archer)

Chris

Having a Christmas present crisis?! Check out my range of genealogy books at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html - perfect for the family historian's Christmas stocking...! Also now out - new Kindle edition of Tracing Your Family History on the Internet, from http://tinyurl.com/d3vqtz5

Scottish Council on Archives - new website

The Scottish Council of Archives has launched a major new website at www.scottisharchives.org.uk, with lost of new goodies.

For current and back issues of the monthly newsletter Broadsheet visit www.scottisharchives.org.uk/news/e-magazine.

Good job!

(With thanks to @ScotsArchives)

Chris

Scottish Research Online - 5 weeks online Pharos course, £45.99, taught by Chris Paton from 26 SEP 2012 - see www.pharostutors.com
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

Scottish Education and Archives survey

The Scottish Council on Archives (www.scoarch.org.uk/home) has launched an online survey to try to establish the provision currently on offer from Scottish archives towards the education sector. From the site:

The purpose of the Education and Archives survey is to gauge current provision and activity across the archive sector in Scotland in relation to education. In particular, we would like to find out more about the resources your service offers for teachers and pupils from nursery to secondary school. If your organisation does not currently offer resources specifically for schools, we would like to learn more about the main opportunities or challenges for your service in this area, as you see them.

The results of this survey will help us to build a picture of current provision across the sector to inform both the delivery and evaluation of the Scottish Council on Archives education pilot projects and future strategic plans in support of the sector and its interaction with schools.

For more on the survey, and to participate, please visit www.scoarch.org.uk/notice-board/292.

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

Scottish Catholic Archives reprieved

I've received a Tweet this morning from historian Michael Turnbull, one of the more prominent voices campaigning against the dispersal of the Scottish Catholic Archives collections in Edinburgh, to say that the facility has now been reprieved. Sure enough, an article from the Edinburgh Evening New earlier in the week has quoted Andrew Nicoll, the keeper of the archive, as saying that he is now confident that the facility will remain open for business and intact. The full article is at www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/edinburgh/keeper-goes-on-record-with-hope-city-will-retain-catholic-archives-1-2464957.

In the piece the press office for the Catholic Church is still saying that no decisions have as yet been taken on the long term future for the archive, whilst Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti of Glasgow has come out with an "it wasn't me guv" comment on the handling of the issue.

The SCA's website now has the following message on display:

The Scottish Catholic Archives is currently operating reduced reading facilities at Columba House in Edinburgh during August. It is hoped to increase access further during September before resuming normal service as soon as possible. To make arrangements for visiting the SCA and conducting research, please email archivists@scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk in the first instance, and staff will be in contact as soon as possible.

A recent online petition generated by genealogist Janet Bishop against the closures (see www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-roman-catholic-church-in-scotland-keep-the-scottish-catholic-archives-in-edinburgh-2?utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition), which this blog and many readers supported, generated 745 names and was presented to the Catholic Church last weekend. To all who supported it, a huge thanks - Edinburgh now retains both a great archive and a great archivist.

Good luck to Andrew and to the SCA for the future!

(With thanks to Michael Turnbull)

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

Scottish Catholic Archives - limited access restored

From the website of the Scottish Catholic Archives (www.scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk):

Due to present circumstances, the Scottish Catholic Archives are temporarily closed. We are putting measures in place to provide limited access by prior confirmed appointment to bone fide researchers each Thursday, commencing Thursday 26th July 2012. It may be possible to arrange additional access on another day per week by appointment. Please check this website regularly for any updates. Should you have any specific enquiries at the present time and for appointments please email archivists@scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk.

There is no mention here though of the current plans to split the archive and to distribute its currently centralised resources across the country. A petition to implore the Catholic Church to change its mind on this has been up and running since Saturday 21st July and currently has 491 signatures. For more on this, the background to the current situation, and how to sign, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/scottish-catholic-archives-petition.html

(With thanks to @geneally on twitter)

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

Former Keeper speaks out on Catholic archive

A former Keeper of the Records of Scotland, Athol Murray, is the latest to lend his support to a petition condemning plans to split up the holdings of the Scottish Catholic Archive in Edinburgh and redistribute them across the country. Signing the petition he stated:

As Keeper of the Records of Scotland (1985-90) I was not only concerned with the national archives but also with the preservation and recording of records held by other institutions or individuals throughout Scotland. The Scottish Catholic Archives are of international, not just national significance and it is vital that they should be kept intact in the care of a qualified archivist and in a location where they are accessible and freely available to researchers, who are willing to travel from elsewhere in Britain and overseas to consult them. It is sad that the support given by the late Cardinals Gray and Winning to the then archivist Mark Dilworth is not being continued by their successors.

Other signatories have included historian Domhnall Uilleam Stiubhart, Your Family History editor Nick Barratt, members of professional bodies AGRA and ASGRA, and many more. 

To sign the petition please visit www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-roman-catholic-church-in-scotland-keep-the-scottish-catholic-archives-in-edinburgh-2?utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition.

For background to the present situation, visit previous coverage at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/controversy-over-catholic-archive-plans.html and http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/shock-closure-of-scottish-catholic.html

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

Shock closure of Scottish Catholic Archives

A major shock to the Scottish archival community today - the Scottish Catholic Archive (www.scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk) at Columba House has suddenly been closed indefinitely. The full story as carried by The Herald is available at www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/anger-over-decision-to-close-church-archives.18001562.

Historian Tom Devine is quoted in the piece as stating the following: "Whatever the merit of the decision to disperse the Scottish Catholic Archives – and they are few to the point of invisibility –- this development is the latest in a long line of mismanagement and indifference to the interests of those who use the archives, and now to the loyal staff."

For much of the saga leading up to this point see my previous post from six weeks ago at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/controversy-over-catholic-archive-plans.html. Best of luck to archivist Andrew Nicoll and colleague for the future.

God certainly moves in mysterious ways...

UPDATE: Further coverage at www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind1206&L=RELIGIOUS-ARCHIVES-GROUP&F=&S=&P=11830, and in a letter from Michael Turnbull in the Scotsman at www.scotsman.com/news/letters/archive-butchery-1-2382312

(With thanks to @genealogygirl Kirsty Wilkinson)

COMMENT: One of the really tragic things about this from the genealogist's point of view is that archivist Andrew Nicoll had been working his socks off to try to trace additional parish registers and records from across Scotland, with some success, and had already published an excellent reference book on Scottish Catholic parish registers (see http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/safhs-2011-conference-report.html), with additional works to come. Many parish records have already been made available on ScotlandsPeople, but there are additional records that have been found that have not yet made it online. Quite apart from the impact on the archive community, will this now mean that these additional records will not appear, or further effort be made to locate similar additional resources?

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

Broadsheet issue 15 - Family History Edition

Issue 15 of the free Scottish Council on Archives e-magazine is now available online, and this month it is a 'Family History Edition'.

Harvey Kaplan of the Scottish Jewish Archives looks at resources available for Jewish research in Scotland, Jane Petrie looks at a new 6 week family history course being established at Stirling by the local Archive and Library Service, Moira Stewart examines how Britain almost went to war with Brazil, and Nick Barrat asks if digitisation is being carried out at the expense of more pressing needs by the nation's archives.

There's also a look by Richard Aitken at the preservation of a school log book from Glencoe, Bruce Bishop, chairman of SAFHS is interviewed about the modern Scottish family history scene - and yours truly sings the praises of the Mitchell Library and the Burns Monument Centre for LETTING ME HAVE SOME OF MY LIFE BACK!!! :)

The magazine is freely available in PDF format at www.scoarch.org.uk/notice-board/broadsheet - as are the fourteen previous issues.

Ah go on - ye will...!

Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)