The friendly

family history service !

in Scotland

What can Blue Thistle do for you ?

Well, we are no ordinary family history service !

You will find that we are flexible enough to carry out a wide range of tasks, and are very tenacious.

We pride ourselves in providing a really good service and giving unbeatable value for money.

Some recent cases will illustrate the kind of tasks we can tackle, to help you ...

Looking at this peaceful country scene near Haddington, no one would suspect that an axe murder had taken place here in 1819 !    We traced all the court records and obtained newspaper reports of the trial.   In the National Archives, we handled the original witness statements written in 1819, and obtained copies of these.    The culprit was sentenced to death, but after pleas from the jurors, was pardoned and transported to Australia, where many of his descendants live today.     They have greatly appreciated receiving the newspaper reports, witness statements and photos of the scene.

This street in St Andrews was where a ships carpenter lived in 1841 just before he emigrated to New Zealand with his wife and 6 children.    They left just before the 1841 census, and so we had to do some detective work in the St Andrews University Library to track down some information, which was then correlated with the 1841 and 1851 census returns to reveal the address where the family had lived.      Their journey to New Zealand was long, arduous and eventful, lasting from June until September 1841.   A mutiny took place aboard the ship and the ships carpenter had to take charge of the vessel.    The family arrived safely and now have many descendants in New Zealand and Australia.

This peaceful cemetery contains the grave of a soldier from the Black Watch regiment who died in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in 1912.   He originally came from Dumfries and had moved around a lot during his army career.    His descendants in New Zealand knew he had been buried in Scotland but had no idea of the location of his grave.   By following up hospital records, undertakers records and cemetery records we were able to find the exact spot and send photographs of where the soldier was buried.    This summer, his family will be visiting Scotland from New Zealand and will now be able to visit the grave.

Generally Blue Thistle can help you by -

• Search for Scottish records at Register House and the National Archives in Edinburgh, including wills, property transfers, and Church Records ( Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic and other churches).

• Search newspaper records, books and maps in the National Library in Edinburgh.

• Source old photographs of places where your ancestors lived and worked, in Scotland.

• If your ancestors lived on a farm in a rural area of Scotland, the chances are that it still exists, and may not look too different to what it did 200 years ago - why not let us find it and take photos for you ?

• Trace living relatives

• Adoption

we can have expertise in this field and can trace adoption records

• Visit graveyards and take photographs. We can report the condition of graves, and leave flowers on your behalf.

• Locate addresses that no longer exist in their old form - we can send you map references, and you can actually view them on Google Earth!

• Research people and places before your visit to Scotland, and help you plan your itinerary.

• Give you a real 'feel' for who your Scottish ancestors were, and how they lived their lives.

And we can do more ! Just email us for advice and we will be happy to help you.

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Blue Thistle Genealogy