Introduction to family history

In this workshop we’ll give a 45-minute presentation on the family history resources available in the Library, and elsewhere, followed by a question and answer session.

This workshop may be most useful to people who have already made a start on building up their family tree and researching official records. As the Library does not hold official records, our collections are best suited to building up a background picture of your ancestors' lives – putting flesh on the bones of your family tree. However, ancestry researchers at all stages are welcome to come along.

We’ve grouped our resources into five different themes – family, locality, work, emigration and immigration, and historic events. We'll talk you through how you can research Scottish family history in these areas.

We’ll cover online resources, physical items from the Library’s collections, and where gaps in our collections can be filled by other institutions. We’ll particularly be looking at how sources you wouldn’t necessarily connect to family history can be surprisingly useful.

When you book an event, your personal information will be held and used by the National Library of Scotland and our third-party suppliers for the purposes of allowing you to attend the event and for audience research. For more information, visit the National Library of Scotland privacy pages, in particular the events notice and feedback and complaints notice. We expect attendees to behave respectfully towards presenters, guests and other audience members.