Family history talk on researching National Library of Scotland resources
Caithness Family History Society (CFHS) will open its new season of meetings on September 10 with an online presentation entitled Getting Started: An Introduction to Using the National Library of Scotland (NLS).
This will not be about the 24 million items held at the Edinburgh library in various formats, including books, manuscripts, postcards, photographs, and newspapers.
It will instead concentrate on the huge number of fascinating, freely available, online resources which will be useful to those who are interested in family and local history.
Robbie Mitchell, reference services assistant in the collection’s access and research department of the NLS, will give a general introduction to the library, its website and the online resources.
Many CFHS members use the online Ordnance Survey maps, which date from the 1840s, but NLS holds over two million cartographic items, making it the largest collection of maps in Scotland and one of the largest in the world.
Scottish Post Office directories can be very useful for researching Scotland’s family, trade, and town history. Over 700 digitised directories covering most of Scotland and dating from 1773 to 1911 are available and can help us find exactly where people lived and how they earned their living.
And, returning to books, NLS is the legal deposit library of Scotland and holds a copy of all of the many books which CFHS has published since its inception 25 years ago.
The free online CFHS meeting is on Tuesday, September 10 at 7pm.
Registration is essential. Email: caithnessfhs@btinternet.com before Friday, September 6 to book a place.
