Thanks to Everyone Who Shared

Do you believe that you will have enough time to finish your trees before you need to pass on the baton? I have only been doing this for a few years and I KNOW that I will not have enough time. Some ancestors are easy to find but a lot of them were never born, never married and never died. Thankfully, Civil Registration of all births, marriages and deaths became mandatory in Scotland in 1855 and since 1841 a decennial census of all individuals has been recorded which is an enormous help. We are all looking forward to the 1901 census becoming available in 2002.

I inherited a good start for my researches from my Uncle, Peter Lowrie Gilchrist. I only started doing these trees after he passed away. He inspired us all to be curious about local history and our family – his fancy was to have a regular clan gathering because he was clever enough to understand the value of family. His sister, my mother, has also been a big help going round the family with a notebook and a smile. She has also investigated all the old family locations in Edinburgh to find that most of them have been demolished and redeveloped.

I also have to thank Nessie Gilchrist for her contribution. – Nessie (Agnes Armstrong Gilchrist) is my Grandfather’s cousin. She has shared her part of the Gilchrist tree and allowed me to copy some great family pictures.

I was lucky enough to re-establish a lost Lowrie family connection by “finding” Terry Foran, an Australian cousin, through the Internet on a genealogy site. He has generously donated his researches on our common ancestors and his family.

The IGI online also brought me into contact with another relative on my Lowrie/Girvan Tree who is also interested in genealogy called Eric Hugh Dalgleish. He very kindly contributed his Dalgleish family tree, which links into our common ancestors Hugh Girvan and Mary Campbell who were married in Borthwick Parish, Midlothian in 1833.

I also have to give credit to the Thomson/Earsman connected family members who have contributed on that tree. They are contributing as a family group. There is Norman McKenzie in Edinburgh, and the Canadian Toughs. They were encouraged into doing their tree by their Uncle, the Rev. Marshall of St. Andrews who was writing to them and researching some of their tree before I was even born.

It has never been easier to pass information on. The common file format is GED, which is understood by all good genealogy packages. When you save a tree in GED format, it is small enough to be easily sent online as an attachment. If you want a solid genealogy package then why not download Personal Ancestral File (PAF) from the LDS web site – it is free and designed by the world experts on genealogy.