Hello!

As we near the end of April, the spring cherry blossom season is winding down here in Vancouver, while I've seen on social media that the trees are in full splendour in Edinburgh. I love the pink 'snow' that comes with the tail end of the blossom season. It's joyful to me and oh so pretty.

I snapped the photo above a couple of years ago in Cooper Park in Elgin. Some of my mum's earliest memories are of playing in Cooper Park when she was small, and I visit anytime I'm in Scotland and able to get up to the Highlands. Elgin's library has a family history section with helpful staff; the town is home to one of my favourite bookshops, Yeadon's; and at the city's cemetery, I can pay my respects to my great grandfather and my maternal aunt, Maureen, who died when she was just six years old. 

June Research Trip

Our group of researchers is getting ready to head off to Scotland in about six weeks. We're looking forward to three days of research at Scotland's People, a coach tour that includes Stirling Castle, and time to explore the city and all it has to offer.

If you haven't signed up but are wishing you had, it's not too late. I have one spot remaining, and would love to have any of you come along. Email me anytime if you have questions, and register here: https://scottishgenealogy.ca/registration/

Those of you already in the group will receive your next attendee-specific newsletter in about a week or so.

National Library of Scotland - Free Class Alert

As you probably know, the National Library of Scotland's map collection is incredible and free to access online at maps.nls.uk. Periodically the library offers a free online class on navigating the maps site. The next of these is coming up on April 29 from 3:00-4:00pm UK time. It won't be recorded, but is repeated from time to time. Details and booking link here: https://www.nls.uk/whats-on/navigating-the-maps-website/

Genealogy Tip - New Records Indexed at Scotland's People

Scotland's People now brought more than 100,000 Victorian prisoner records online. These records from Ayr and Inverary prisons are searchable on the Scotland's People. Details and a guide to prison records at SP here: https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/news-and-articles/100000-victorian-prison-records-now-online

Genealogy Tip - Deciphering Old Handwriting

One of the challenges of family history can be attempting to decipher difficult-to-read handwriting. Generations of my own family come from a place in the West Highlands where the minister or clerk or whoever it was who kept the written records of late 18th century baptisms and marriages had absolutely terrible penmanship to challenge me on top of the usual struggles of reading older styles of writing. Over time, I got to know his writing well enough to read it without too much trouble, but it was slow going for a long time. 

There are a few online places you can go to learn about old Scottish handwriting in particular:

Scotland's People offers this information page, as well as practice in reading old handwriting here. 

ScottishIndexes.com has posted a handout by Margaret Fox from a lecture she gave at a past Scottish Indexes conference here.

A note re Scottish Indexes: if you haven't ever attended one of their Scottish Indexes online conferences, they're well worth checking out. They're free (with a suggested donation of £10), and they make an effort to try to be accessible to as many time zones as possible. The next one will be coming up in September. You can see details of their past conferences and links to a handful of presentations that are still available here. 

That's it from me for now. More soon!

Kathy