Author Topic: Looking for a place in Scotland?  (Read 2064 times)

Offline Forfarian

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Looking for a place in Scotland?
« on: Saturday 03 February 18 20:02 GMT (UK) »
A few things to bear in mind when you start looking for the place where your forebears came from.

1. Place names in Scotland are seldom unique. For example there are an Edinburgh in the parish of Birnie and a Dundee in the parish of Marnoch, and there are at least three Lethams and four Kirkmichaels. There are umpteen Miltons, Kirktowns, Burnsides, Hillends, Logies, Townheads and Craggans, to mention but a few.

2. A search using a modern road atlas is doomed to failure. The croft or farm your ancestors lived in is not marked, let alone named, on any modern road atlas. You need a map at a scale of 1:50,000 or 1:25,000 or even more detailed.

3. All older records of births and marriages were recorded by the church, and are organised on the basis of parishes. You have to know the parish in order to find the right place. So if you are asking for help to find a place mentioned in a baptism record, always state which parish it came from.

4. If a record from a parish register says your ancestor was born or lived in a particular place, it almost invariably means a place with that name in that parish unless otherwise specified. There may well be a place of the same name three counties away, but it isn't the one you are looking for.

5. There are lots of pointers to place names at https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/

6. There are loads of old maps at http://maps.nls.uk/index.html

7. Remember that spelling is not fixed and that the place you are looking for may be spelled in lots of different ways.

Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline Skoosh

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Re: Looking for a place in Scotland?
« Reply #1 on: Tuesday 10 July 18 15:18 BST (UK) »
Could also be Scottish? finding another piece with that pattern is the best bet. Transfer printed so won't be a one-off!

Skoosh.

Offline Forfarian

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Re: Looking for a place in Scotland?
« Reply #2 on: Tuesday 10 July 18 16:39 BST (UK) »
Sorry, Skoosh, I don't follow you.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline Skoosh

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Re: Looking for a place in Scotland?
« Reply #3 on: Tuesday 10 July 18 20:03 BST (UK) »
Wrong thread, it's the heat!  ;D


Skoosh.


Offline Forfarian

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Re: Looking for a place in Scotland?
« Reply #4 on: Tuesday 10 July 18 20:53 BST (UK) »
Wrong thread, it's the heat!  ;D
Phew, that's a relief!
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline Gadget

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Re: Looking for a place in Scotland?
« Reply #5 on: Tuesday 10 July 18 20:55 BST (UK) »
I thought he's got the wrong thread and went looking for it but couldn't decide which one it should be.


 ;D
Census &  BMD information Crown Copyright www.nationalarchives.gov.uk and GROS - www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

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