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| Hello! Our 2026 Edinburgh tour is behind us. What a great time we had! We had an excellent group of people along on this trip, all of whom were fun to spend time with and a joy to discuss family history with. Everyone came with research goals in mind, which made for busy days at Scotland’s People. Some of us were madly saving or printing documents until the last closing bell went on the last day, and would happily have gone back for more.Below are some highlights of the week, but first, Registration is NOW OPEN for our 2027 Edinburgh Research Tour, June 13-20, 2027. Register now using this form.What can you expect from the trip? Read on! |
| Some Highlights from our 2026 Trip |
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| Some of us who arrived a couple of days before the group started went to listen to historian Kate Williams talk about her new book, Regina: A New History of Women and Power. This was my favourite kind of book event in that she told stories of some of the people featured in the book and showed pictures of her research trip rather than reading directly from the text. She stuck around afterward to sign books and chat, which was lovely. Her inscription in my book definitely challenged my palaeography skills. |
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| Our hotel had just completed a full renovation, so we were in freshly-decorated rooms with kitchenettes, which I always like for a longer stay. Our location by the university on the edge of the Meadows was ideal: close enough to all the attractions of the Old Town to walk, but away from the noise and bustle. The Meadows is a lovely spot to take a break from the city. |
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| Scottish Genealogy Society |
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| We visited the Scottish Genealogy Society library on Victoria Terrace. The volunteers there are super friendly and helpful, and their little library holds all kinds of treasures. I was there to help, but also found a booklet of memorial inscriptions for St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney, that includes my fourth great grandmother Jean Stewart. Two members of our group hunted through Edinburgh directories and other resources in search of their 19th century blacksmith ancestor. |
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| Three research days at Scotland’s People |
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| There’s truly nothing like being at a Scotland’s People site for making progress on your Scottish family history research. Three full days of research at Scotland’s People with me there to help as needed are included in the Edinburgh tour. Through those doors in the photo are rows of computers, one of which is assigned to you for the full day, so you can come and go for breaks as you like, though I must admit most of us popped out only for toilets and a very brief lunch break so as not to waste a second. Once you’re logged in, you can make unlimited searches of all the digitized records and look at as many documents as you want without paying an extra penny. You only get charged when you save a record to your account or print it. This means you can make swift work of seeing if any of the seemingly endless numbers of James Frasers on any of the censuses are yours without having to guess which one it might be before you spend precious credits to look the way you have to at home. One couple on this trip was able to eliminate umpteen possibilities from the 1851 census for their relative, which can be almost as useful as finding the right one. Another was able to zip through dozens of records to find the one with the right family names and ages. I was able to track down a long-missing sibling of my 3x great grandmother and her family. I had no idea where in Scotland she’d gone when she left Orkney, and she had a pretty common name, so I started with places her siblings had ended up and simply clicked from record to record for hours until I found her at last! And of course I was there first and foremost to help if anyone got stuck or simply needed a fresh perspective on their searches. |
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| National Library of ScotlandSome of us elected to visit the National Library a couple of evenings after Scotland’s People closed for the day. If you don’t already have a library card, it’s well worth registering online for access to many digitized records such as city directories. And many of you likely know that their digitized map collection is beyond compare. The National Library is a reference library rather than a lending one, so to use their reading rooms, you need a physical library card, which is very easy to get or renew in the lobby of the building when you visit with ID. If you come with me, I’ll show you! You request items you want to look at on their system, and later that day or the next day (depending when you order), they’ll have retrieved the item from their storage for your use in the reading rooms. This time, one of the items I wanted to look at was fragile and housed in Special Collections. The photo above is the gorgeous view toward Arthur’s Seat and the Firth from the Special Collections Reading Room. One of the booklets someone in our group requested helped them figure out how to find a particular street in Edinburgh on the 1851 census, knowledge they put to work at our next Scotland’s People day. The National Library also has a cafe in the lobby that’s a great spot for a quiet cup of tea in the middle of the very busy Old Town. |
| Other Fun |
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| When we weren’t researching or meeting to discuss research goals, we had time to explore the city and beyond.We spent a rainy day visiting Loch Lomond and Stirling Castle this time around, and several of us visited the very interesting Lauriston Castle in Edinburgh. A couple of people took a free day to do an Outlander Tour, while others visited local relatives and participated in tourist activities in the city or visited the National Portrait Gallery. I took a long walk to photograph the places in Leith that my great grandparents called home including the one in the photo immediately above this text, which is of the address at which my great grandfather grew up, and I visited the National Gallery, which I love. |
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| Closing Night Dinner We closed out the week with a pub dinner with traditional Scottish music. The musicians were excellent and it was a perfect way to round out a great week: good company, good food, and good music. |
| Join Us!I hope you’ll join us for next year’s trip. I’d love to have you along! Of this year’s adventure, Jeanie from Oregon said, “Oh my gosh, I loved it! I thought the activities you planned were very enjoyable and I was happy to spend time with you and the other participants. Makes me smile to think of our adventures 😁 As a less experienced researcher, I thought the time at ScotlandsPeople was useful. I’m looking forward to getting back into my tree with the new information. I also had great fun exploring on my own and spending some time with my Scottish cousin. Definitely feel a pull to the homeland! Thanks again for your kindness before and during the trip. See you next time” I’m already looking forward to next time. Hope to see you there! |