How to search for your Scottish ancestors and unravel your family history

For genealogist Emma Maxwell, finding the ancestors of her clients can be an exercise that can both uphold these family stories, or dismantle them as the puzzle starts to solve and truths emerge.

Ms Maxwell said: “There are so many reasons behind these family stories. It could be somebody has literally told a story to cover something up.

“Families can be left with romanticised ideas - because there was no one around to say that was not quite how it happened. The challenge is how do you present that to the client? Some people are very attached to the family story.”

She added: “It can be hard. We have had people come to us believing they were Scottish and they were not Scottish at all. They were from Cumbria.”

Ms Maxwell has been a genealogist for almost 25 years and, along with her husband Gavin, runs the Scottish Indexes website, which is a portal to family research and thousands of records from courts, prisons and asylums.

The majority of her clients are from the United States, where around five million people claim to have Scottish ancestry, with family histories bound in stories of emigration and exit from the old country.

Ms Maxell said: “The people who left may have taken the photographs with them, the pictures of mum, brother and sister. They pass down the generations.

“I think some people who are descended from those who have left Scotland would still consider themselves to be Scottish. I don’t think that is universal, but I think some people would feel that.

“They may never have been here. It was perhaps their great, great grandfather who left, but somehow they still feel very connected to Scotland.

“If your ancestors emigrated 150 years ago and your family has been living in the United States, there is no way you are just Scottish.

“You are clearly going to have people from an awful lot of countries in their family tree. And yet, for some people, they are Scottish. I think that therefore shows that it is something that appeals to them. It is quite sentimental for some people.”

For Ms Maxwell, who has appeared on BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? advising comedian Diane Morgan on her Scottish roots, said old family photographs were a good starting point in a search.

The faces and occasions captured in the fading prints - and the names and dates sometimes scribbled on the back - can be unique, powerful tools in the search.

Ms Maxwell said: “They can be good for clues if they have names on the back. Even the date for a wedding or an anniversary can be very helpful.

“If you can take that to your older relatives, such as a grandmother or a great aunt, it is a brilliant way to have that conversation because photographs can jog the memory.

“If they are happy to do so, it is good to record the conversation. But later, as you uncover more, it might make more sense what they have said.”

Researching death records comes next. These can be found on Scotland’s People website, run by National Records of Scotland, which Ms Maxwell described as a “fantastic” site.

She said: “Then it's just a case of putting the pieces of the jigsaw together, from the birth to the marriage to the death. That is the skeleton. That has to come first and once you have done that you can move onto some really exciting stuff.”

Find My Past - where residents of Scotland can access some records for free with a National Library of Scotland card - and Ancestry.com are two other “really good websites”, Ms Maxwell said.

Once the basic outline of a family tree is mapped out, a family search can then advance through church records, which date back to 1553 and offer a rich vein of information.

Relatives can be found in poor relief accounts and records of those who paid fees to use a mortcloth for a burial of a family member, for example.

Kirk Session papers often throw up scandals and morality crimes, such as sex outside marriage and the names of the fathers of illegitimate children.

“You then want to start to look for clues, so you can build up what is going on in that person’s life,” Ms Maxwell said.

“For example, if you find your family on the census and a member of the family is missing, then where were they? I have seen a scenario where you had all the children listed, but not the parents. The parents were in prison.”

Ms Maxwell added: “That’s the tragedy of it sometimes. Either your ancestors are really rich or terrible things happen to you . And that is when you find out more about them.”

One research project carried out by Ms Maxwell traced the story of a young girl who witnessed a “terrible accident” when a boiler exploded as it was transported through central Glasgow in 1871, killing many children.

After coming across the girl’s witness statement in court records, Ms Maxwell was able to trace her path through life. Later, as a woman, she worked as a prostitute and then appeared in asylum records. Church records showed her care was paid for by poor relief.

“I am not a psychologist, but this kind of research can really help to understand how someone’s life has unfolded,” Ms Maxwell said.

The genealogist is often approached by clients who have come to a halt in their own search and who need to find a way forward through the available information.

She said: “I love a puzzle and the question is what records can we look at to solve this puzzle. That could be a huge variety of records and you need to use different ones depending on what the problem is.

“Often it is going to depend on the status of the person you are looking for and the time period.

“So if somebody is wealthier- and we are not talking about extreme wealth, perhaps business people - there are deeds. Deeds are amazing - almost any deed could be useful.”

“A marriage contract, an apprenticeship, a bond or a tenancy listed in deeds could offer well of information. If there was a dispute - you are cooking with gas.”

Ms Maxwell said researching family history offered “really good insight into the history of ordinary people” with glimpses of everyday life found tucked away in the records of institutions.

She said: “Sometimes the tiniest details mean the most. - and these details aren’t in the history books.”