Collins Tracing Your Scottish Family History. Anthony Adolph

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       A family tree of the Campbell Clan, drawn as a real tree, complete with trunk and branches, from The House of Argyll and the Collateral Branches of Clan Campbell (1871) – courtesy of SoG.

      Some people enjoy using family tree computer programs. A comparative table of those available is at www.My-history.co.uk. Many are based on the transferable ‘Gedcom’ format, so once you have typed in your data you can move it between programs, including the one used in Genes Reunited.

      Others (like me) aren’t so keen: most have limitations, or pester you for ‘vital data’ that you don’t have, almost forcing you into making misleading assumptions. Many demand dates of birth, marriage and death. From 1855 onwards in Scotland this is all very well, as these are very well recorded. Before then, however, Old Parochial Registers (and most non-Established church registers) can record baptisms, not births, and proclamations, not marriages, and few programs make allowances for such subtleties, resulting in people entering the former as the latter. Just recently I saw a Family Group Sheet giving a death date of 5 July 1617. The evidence was a burial dated 6 July 1617, and my poor client, browbeaten by the computer’s demand for a date of death, had simply guessed that the burial was the day after the death – which is in fact rather unlikely.

      I prefer hand-writing family trees and keeping more detailed notes in computer ‘word’ documents. The following ‘narrative’ method allows much flexibility:

       Alexander Matheson

       Write everything you know about Alexander. Then write ‘his children were’ and list them:

       1 Donald Matheson, the next member of the direct line, so after his name type ‘see below’

       2 Alexander Matheson. Put anything you know about Alexander and his descendants here. If he had children, then write ‘his children were:

       1 Hamish Matheson.

       2 James Matheson: if he had offspring, then…

       1 Jean Matheson

       3 Margaret Matheson. If you have absolutely loads on Margaret and her descendants, you might want to open a separate ‘chapter’ for her and put her at the top of her own narrative document.

       Donald Matheson, son of Alexander.

       Write what you know about Donald, and so on.

      Since 2002, however, these records have become available on www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk. This is run by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), the National

      Archives of Scotland (NAS), the Court of the Lord Lyon and an internet company, Brightsolid. You purchase a block of credits using a credit or

      Pedigree conventions

      • = indicates a marriage, accompanied by ‘m-’ and the date and place.

      • solid lines indicate definite connections: dotted lines indicate probable but unproven ones.

      • wiggly lines are for illegitimacy (though straight lines are now acceptable) and ‘x’ for a union out of wedlock.

      • loops are used if two unconnected lines need to cross over, just like electricians’ wiring diagrams.

      • wives usually go on the right of husbands, though only if that doesn’t interfere with the chart’s overall layout.

      • Common abbreviations are: