ScotlandsPeople, Genealogical Website

NEW ROOTS FOR THE NATION

A new website for ScotlandsPeople is set to open up genealogy to a whole new audience. Lorraine Wakefield tries it out and gets a glimpse of her family tree.

I didn't have much to go on - simply the name Wakefield, I knew they lived in Fife and had arrived from England in the late 19th century to work in domestic service before my grandfather was born.

Despite having no more than this to go on within minutes I was staring amazed at the 1901 Census entry for my great grandparents Joseph and Rose Wakefield living in Cupar, Fife.

This revealed the couple, originally from Essex, were living at 207 Moathill in a house with no less than three rooms with windows - not bad for the time - with their young sons William (4) and Walter (1) and my great grandfather was working as a jobbing waiter and postman.

The clues provided in this brief snapshot of their life was enough to take me on to the next part of my search. Young Walter was born in Cupar in 1899 and his birth certificate revealed the family had moved since his birth and my great grandfather was working as a hotel waiter at the time.

While searching for Walter's birth an unexpected bonus turned up in the shape of his sister Emma born in 1901, after the Census was completed and all of a sudden I had found my grandfather's three eldest siblings.

A bit more searching and I discovered my great Uncle Walter's marriage record, my great grandfather's death, that his mother came to live with him in later life as her death was recorded at his home in 1922 and two of my father's siblings who died in infancy.

I was absolutely fascinated and desperate to find out more but that would have to wait until another day as my mother's family have a much more common name in Fife - Kinnear - and I will need to be better prepared to turn up positive results so quickly.

This is the kind of search that has been made easy and accessible worldwide thanks to the creation of www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk in a new partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland and Scotland On Line.

The website contains a veritable treasure trove of information to enable Scots everywhere to trace their roots back through hundreds of years of history and discover their family tree.

Containing almost 37million names ScotlandsPeople is one of the biggest resources of genealogical information anywhere and one of the largest single information resources on the Web.

For the very first time indexed digital images of the statutory registers of births for Scotland, 1856-1901 and the statutory registers of deaths for Scotland, 1856-1951 will be available online and these will soon be followed by indexed digital images of the statutory registers of marriages for Scotland, 1856-1926 and browsable digital images of the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 census returns for Scotland.

Other records previously available online are also on the new site - indexed digital images of the 1891 and 1901 census returns for Scotland, indexes to the 1881 census returns for Scotland and indexes to the Old Parochial Registers of baptisms and proclamations/marriages for Scotland, 1553-1854.

The service will be further enhanced in 2003 when digital images of the Old Parochial Registers of baptisms, proclamations of banns/marriages and deaths and of the 1881 census returns also become available online.

Pic: Dr Callison and Dr Simpson
The website was officially launched by the deputy justice minister Dr Richard Simpson at New Register House in Edinburgh that contains the miles of shelves holding the records now on the website.

"In Scotland by the end of 2003 we will have the most comprehensive source of family information available in any country in the world and that will be more than 30million images," said Dr Simpson.

"Family history is one of the fastest growing pastimes and one of the biggest areas of interest on the Internet. I think people (who use the site) will want to come to Scotland and it is a wonderful opportunity for improving tourism in Scotland," he added.

At the launch John Randall, Registrar General for Scotland, said, "I am delighted to be able to introduce our new website which, for the first time, will give online users access via digital images to the information contained in Scotland's official registers of births and deaths.

"With Scotland On Line we are looking forward to putting online images of all the historical records that GROS holds. The result will probably be the most comprehensive online set of family history information for any country in the world.

"We are pleased to be working with our new partners, Scotland On Line, and look forward to the future development of the site."

His views were echoed by Richard Callison, Scotland On Line's Chief Executive Officer, who said, "One of the principal challenges for Scotland On Line in creating the new Scotlands People site has been to assimilate and make accessible a vast amount of data and images - tens of millions of separate images will now be available online.

"Also, by the very nature of genealogy, each search for a family history is very much an individual one, with each user heading off in many different directions to trace their own particular family roots. The need to be able to guide the user through an enormous number of possible trails was achieved by the blend of specialist skills within our technical team.

"There is now a huge amount of interest in the subject of genealogy and demand continues to grow. Our principal objective in working on the project was to assist in popularising the idea of genealogical research and to help make the subject and the relevant material more accessible to the individual."

Access to searches on ScotlandsPeople costs just £6 for 30 credits but the site also has a number of free features including a surname search, features on genealogy and Scotland's history and a selection of Famous Scots 1901 Census records.

You can find out more about your family at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

(19/9/2002)

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