Tips for finding our ancestors in the 1911 census

As many of you will know the 1911 census for Scotland is not available on Findmypast or Ancestry. The Orkney 1911 census has been transcribed and is available from the Orkney FHS.

This means that we have to use the census on ScotlandsPeople which is a pay-per-view website. If we are researching a common name in a densely populated area we may have to look at many entries before we find the right one. 

How can we save those credits?

I will be sharing some tips at our conference on 30 January 2021 but here is one for you today.

Use Street Indexes

Before the census was available to public access, street indexes were prepared for large towns and cities. These can be helpful as they tell you which streets are in each registration district and even which census enumeration book. 

For example, earlier today I was searching for someone who I knew had been living at 272 Buchanan Street Glasgow in 1909. I wanted to work out from the ScotlandsPeople index (without paying anything) if any of the possible results could relate to 272 Buchanan Street.

First I went to the census street index for Glasgow and I was told that 272 Buchanan Street was in registration district number 644/8 and the relevant enumeration book was number 29.

Sadly you can’t use these reference numbers to search on ScotlandsPeople so I needed to work out what the name of registration district number 644/8 was in 1911. For rural areas, this isn’t such a problem but there are loads of districts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. It can all get a bit confusing. 

I now headed to the ‘Registration District guide - Glasgow’ which told me that in 1911 (very important to look at the date column) 644/8 was St. Rollox registration district.

I could now return to ScotlandsPeople and narrow down my search to St. Rollox. You can’t narrow it down to the enumeration book but we are looking for entries from 644/8 29. 

On ScotlandsPeople you will also see a page number as part of the reference number, for example we may see, ‘644/8 29/ 26’ This is registration district (RD) 644/8, enumeration book 29, page 26.

If I had originally thought that the entry with the reference 644/8 29/ 26 was 272 Buchanan Street, Glasgow, I would now know that it wasn’t and therefore I could save my credits for another search.

There are 1911 Census Street Indexes for the following places in Scotland:

Aberdeen

Ayr

Bonhill

Bothkennar, Grangemouth and Polmont

Bothwell, Holytown and Bellshill

Cambusnethan

Dalziel

Dumfries

Dunbarton

Dundee

Dunfermline

East and West Calder

Edinburgh

Falkirk

Glasgow

Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow

Hamilton

Hawick

Inverness

Kilmarnock

Kirkcaldy and Dysart

Lewis and Harris

Montrose

New Kilpatrick

New Monkland

Old Kilpatrick

Old Monkland - Western District, Coatbridge and Old Monkland - Eastern District

Paisley, Johnstone and Elderslie

Perth

Skye

St Ninians

Stirling

The Street Indexes are free from the National Records of Scotland here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/census-records/1911-census#Street%20indexes

The ‘Parishes and Registration Districts of Scotland by name’ guide (1.4 MB pdf) lists all parishes and districts in alphabetical order with the dates during which each was operative. There are also pages with further breakdowns of the cities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. See: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/statutory-registers/registration-districts

I hope this helps you understand the referencing system a bit more and will hopefully save you some of those credits while you hunt for your ancestors. Hope you can join us at the next conference for more Scottish genealogy tips!

For the Love of Genealogy - One Client’s Story

A client came to us recently with a birth certificate form 1855. On the document there is a correction to say that the Sheriff Court had reached a decree and named the father. Our client would like to find more information on this case: who wouldn't?

The problem is that the case was heard in Aberdeen. Unfortunately, the volumes of extracted decrees for Aberdeen Sheriff Court are largely missing (we have indexed the few remaining volumes which are held by the National Records of Scotland). The processes, a type of court document, do survive and they can contain very interesting information, we have even found love letters. The problem is that it can take hours of work to find the entry you need.

The NRS catalogue states about the Aberdeen Processes, “Some processes have been filed under dates other than year of Interlocutor (sometimes through misreading of the figures), but most will be found in the two years before or after that date.”

Our client decided she wanted to search for the 1857 processes. We began our search some months ago. As you can imagine, even in the 1850s, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was busy so there are a lot of boxes (you can see a photo of a box of processes on our website).

There are 10 boxes for 1857, to search 2 years either side (as is suggested in the NRS catalogue) would mean searching 55 boxes!

We have now searched 15 boxes, all the 1857 boxes and some either side. We have found 167 cases… but none of them are the case we are looking for.

The good news is that by making this search we have noted all these other cases so that you can now search these entries on www.scottishindexes.com. We want to say a huge thank you to the client who has helped us add these cases, and let you know that if you had an illegitimate ancestor in Aberdeen it may be worth searching our website to see what you can find. If you do find a case which helps with your research, take a moment to think about our lovely client who can’t find her case.

Scotland's Community Heritage Conference 2016

We recently attended Scotland's Community Heritage Conference 2016 in Aberdeen. It was a great day so I want to tell you a little about it.

We genealogists (professional or hobbyists) approach research looking at the people. First we gather names and dates, then we start to think about their lives. We met many people at the conference who work from the other direction, they focus on a community, thinking first about people’s lives then perhaps looking at the individual people. This means that these are the people we need to contact once we have our lists of people and dates! This is particularly true if you are planning a trip to Scotland to research your family history and have a limited time here.

One of my favorite talks of the day was given by Lorna Summers of the Portsoy Salmon Bothy. Laura has worked hard in Portsoy to not only tell the story of Portsoy Harbour but also make history live. Within the renovated bothy is a museum but they also have a lot of events going on which bring the fishing industry to life for young and old alike. The highlight of the calendar is the The Annual Scottish Traditional Boat Festival. If your ancestors were involved in the fishing industry this would be a great place to get a feel for what their life was really like.

Before lunch we experienced ‘One-Minute Mayhem: 60-second presentations against the clock. If you have met me you may well imagine that I was tempted to join in but at the same time I did have to think about what I was going to say. Jean Shirer, our dear friend from the Aberdeen Family History Society, stood up and did an excellent presentation and so I raised my hand and followed in her footsteps. Graham recorded my 60-second presentation so you can judge for yourself how well I did!

At lunchtime there were some tours on offer, we opted for the St. Mary’s Chapel and Mither Kirk Project and the Aberdeen Archives tour. To be honest I did not know what to expect on the first tour, we had time so we went but I had done no research; we were amazed. As you can see from the photos this old church (now in trust) has been excavated and an archaeological dig has taken place. It was clear to see the remains of previous churches and graves, burials from before the time our research often takes us. As we stood looking at the bones stuck in the wall (in places they had been used as rubble when the building was redesigned) it reminded me that when we see a gravestone or a death certificates these are very very real people! One of the amazing objects to be found was a scallop shell, a pilgrim token from Santiago de Compostela, Spain! There are various open days so if you are in Aberdeen I can definitely recommend that you visit and see the place for yourself.

After lunch Amy McDonald from the National Library of Scotland gav a talk called, “Connecting Scotland’s Sounds”. She played Scottish fiddle music taken from a wax cylinder of 1909! To be able to hear something your ancestors created and/or listened to brings a whole new dimension to your family history! You can follow Amy and the team on twitter to learn more about preserving and sharing Scotland's sound heritage!

All in all it was a great day and hopefully there will be a similar event next year.