scottish decent?

Question

my mothers fathers family has scottish lineage. they have roots that go way back and the name has been unchanged for along freakin time. i feel a calling to that family. it has strong roots. i am a son, so i carry my fathers last name wich also has scottish roots. would i be acepted as family on my mothers side in scottland. i dont know them yet ,but want to get in touch with them. i know the name is carried down generation after generation. how does all that work? am i related to the family in scottland that has my mothers maiden name.? its not a average name. and there are storys that thats where we were from? just want to figure out for personal knowlege and i would like to start a family tree....

Answer 1

Build your family tree on line.
You can use a paid site like:
http://www.ancestry.com/

OR You can do this for free on:

http://www.tribalpages.com/

Start with yourself, then attach living family members.
Find out all you can about you family from living members, then attach it to your tree.
Now it is time to look for historical records and attach the info to your tree:

It is ALL about census records, and other historical records!

You might get lucky and others may have done some work on your family tree. Google family members names i.e. "Mary Smith" + "family tree"

Free sites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=27399&o_lid=27399

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/

http://www.cyndislist.com/

Genealogy message board:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards/newguide/?board=history

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ab-genealogy&nav=messages&lgnF=y&msg=90.1

http://boards.ancestry.com/

http://www.gensource.com/common/search.cfm

http://messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/Family___Home/Genealogy/

http://genforum.genealogy.com/

http://www.genealogyforum.com/messages/

http://www.progenealogists.com/messageboards.htm

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/boards.php?boardId=56406&func=2&channel=aol+research+and+learn&refresh=true

http://boards.rootsweb.com/

ECT.
The time may come when you want more information than you can find for free. When this happens you can back up your "tribalpage" tree to your computer on a "GEDCOM" file
you can then go to (I think it is the best subscription site)

http://www.ancestry.com/

Upload your "GEDCOM" file
and start to work!
You might need to make a few adjustments to your tree to make it look better.

Answer 2

You ask: "am i related to the family in scottland that has my mothers maiden name.? " - the answer is maybe....

You won't be able to tell for certain if you ARE related to someone, even if you don't have an average name ...unless you research your family tree. Other posters have fgiven some excellent advice on how to start your family tree, so I won't repeat that advice.

I'm Scottish, and I, too have an unusual name. I am in a group of people who are researching our common surname.
This type of family research is called a "one-name study"

You might want to consider contacting the Guild of One-Name Studies for advice and to see if they know of a one-name study being conducted for your surname - their url is http://www.one-name.org/

My unusual name is held by many people around the world, which on the face of it do not seem to be directly related to me.... it may be that we will be able to establish a common ancestor... we may not.... but we are having a lot of fun trying.... :)

good luck!

Answer 3

Its quite easy to start tracing your family in Scotland as stated Scotlands People is a great site.

Here are some more sites to start your research:


The Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) - The church have an large set of records in the UK, that they have gathered from churches and parishes. Much of this is available for free at http://www.familysearch.org. They have birth, marriage and death records, copies of the censuses available, all for FREE! However you may find at times some information is missing, and sometimes you will be informed that there is a record available but it hasn't been transcribed, in which case you will have to ask them to provide a copy. This can be done by visiting the local LDS center, this is all explained on their website.


FreeBMD - Is a free site that has a large number of the indexes from the UK transcribed, it's done by volunteers and is excellent! You will find some inaccuracies, largely due to the fact that many registers were handwritten, so reading peoples handwriting can be very difficult. They are also doing more projects to transcribe the censuses and other documents, although these are less well transcribed right now:

Free Census FreeCEN - All the censuses are being transcribed as the BMD information was.
Free Parish Register FreeREG - All the parish registers of significance are being transcribed by volunteers.
Rootsweb - World Connect Project - Search for your ancestors name and check millions of records.
Debt of Honour Register - Personal and service details for all Commonwealth forces, includes memorial and burial information.
Interment.net - Free Cemetery Records Online - Free genealogy database contains millions of records from thousands of cemeteries worldwide
British GenWeb - Hundreds of links, broken down by county.
Ancestry.co.uk - Offer a 14 day trial free, also Ancestry offer certain other databases free (indexes for censuses, etc), which mean you dont have to pay for the full service.
1901 Census - 32 million individuals who lived in England and Wales in 1901 are indexed, with name, age, occupation all free.
Geneanet - A French family tree site that is now a world network. The database has 85 million names taken from free Web sites around the world.
Scottish Documents - 520,000 Scottish wills and testaments dating from 1500 to 1901 have been indexed. Digital images of the documents can be purchased online.
GenCircles - Global Tree - A popular place for searching and submitting family trees using GEDCOM files. Over 32 million surnames can be searched and cross matching of other trees is possible.
1851 Scottish Census - Free index for the 1851 census returns for all the parishes of Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire in Scotland.


Simon

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http://howtomakeafamilytreeforfreeuk.21publish.com/
http://howtomakeafamilytree.weebly.com/

Answer 4

Obviously, you are related to both your paternal and maternal ancestors; and, of course, given the time and proper resources, you can trace them. One important fact remains, however. Just how long ago did your mother's ancestors emigrate from Scotland? My last Scottish ancestors to leave Scotland left Argyll for North Carolina around 1800, but it's not as if I plan to waltz unannounced into some distance-cousin's Glasgow kitchen and say I've arrived for tea. Of course, just in case I find myself on the eastern side of the Atlantic, the Hendersons and MacLachlans should be forewarned. I'd say if your mum was a War Bride during World War II, you would stand a better chance.

Answer 5

If you are of Scottish decent, there is only one website you need.

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

It is by the government, and will cost you some money, but not that much. They provide birth certificates, marriage certificates, census copies, etc.

If you have a common name, it may be a little harder because you will not know which certificate to order. But if you have a name to begin with, and know the county and/or town it will be alot easier.

Answer 6

With a acceptance like which you certainly have Scottish in you, so in case you want to then i could say specific! playstation : the different poster is stable, tutor a wee smile hun, it brighten the day. specific you may! And specific I do toots, looks gorgeous as a button!

Answer 7

It would help us all immensely if you mentioned the Scottish names you are talking about. I would maybe be able to give you a better answer then.
:)