GENEALOGY

What is genealogy? It is the pursuit of finding one's ancestors and tracing back family

lines. Many people start the hobby in the hope that they can trace their tree back to some

famous person in the past such as Charlemagne the Great, Saint Augustine, or William the

Conqueror. Or that they will get an invite to spend Christmas at Sandringham on the grounds

they can prove themselves to be 8th cousin 6 times removed to Queen Victoria. Generally of

course it's a pretty forlorn hope. In the end most of us have to face the fact that we are

descended from relative nobodies in the great affairs of men. We may well have links to the

great men of the past but finding them is another matter (although I do know I am related to

the actress Jane Horrocks). Nevertheless once we've grown out of the "great ancestor

collecting" stage there is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained by tracing some of

one's lines and finding out something about how one's ancestors lived and something about

the history of the places where they lived.

When I first started the hobby it seemed a relatively arcane pursuit, but now it has many

thousands of adherents. A big boost has been provided by the Mormons (The Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter Day Saints). Their members (and I am not one) believe that they cam baptise

their dead ancestors by proxy ¹and for this reason the church has developed a huge industry of transcribing

records such as civil censuses, parish baptism and marriage registers etc from all over the

world. These records are made available to all researchers irrespective of faith and no

pressure is applied to those using them.

One of the problems is distance as many of us live may miles, often thousands of miles, from

our roots. My local reference library in Inverness has, in Summer, a constant succession of visitors from

Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and many other places researching their Scottish roots.

They are supported by an excellent staff. But it has to be said that the facilities, under

the control of Highland Council, are not what they ought to be. The internet has made a huge

difference and there are many genealogy sites out there on the World Wide Web ².