Tracing your Glasgow Ancestors: A Guide for Family and Local Historians

摘要

Pen & Sword have for some years been issuing a series of specialised guides to family history, each adapted to research either on a particular geographical area or a particular occupation. This latest addition covers Glasgow, which in the days of its industrial greatness used to describe itself as "The second city of the Empire"; now that industrial greatness and empire are both in the past, they have left numerous records behind them. The book is stated to be suitable both for beginners and for more experienced genealogical researchers looking for a wider variety of resources. Naturally, it emphasises the records which may be found in Glasgow itself, describing the holdings of the principal archives and libraries there, together with contact details and websites. As will be known to everyone with an interest in Scottish family history, most of the really fundamental records - for instance, the official registers of births, marriages and deaths -are (contrary to the English practice) centralised in Edinburgh, but nowadays their easy availability online avoids that difficulty. A chapter on key sources analyses their contents and limitations; it is surprising to discover that a survey carried out in 1830 demonstrated that only half of the children born in the city were being listed in the parish records.