Borders Family History Society

18/11/2025

The records of the Scottish Women’s Land Army can contain unexpected, helpful details.

They include women who volunteered for the Land Army and the Women’s Timber Corps, born between 1874 and 1924.

Each card contains some or all the following information:

Name
Address
Date of birth or age on enrolment
Enrolment or service file number
Previous employment
Date of enrolment
Training details
Place of employment and dates
Remarks, which could include work experience, service badges, conduct and other details.

Find out more 👉bit.ly/LandArmySP

15/11/2025

Daisy Aitchison was born in 1905 and was from Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders. She worked as a fish gutter and in this recording from 1975, she recalls how as a girl she used to collect limpets as bait for the inshore line fishing. She describes the implement used to dislodge them and also the sculls [wicker baskets] used by fishermen, which they wove onto blacksmith-made rims.

Daisy is being recorded by Alan Bruford and Ailie Munro of the School of Scottish Studies.
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https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/78805?l=en
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Photo taken by P Hughes and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

13/11/2025

Check out the new BFHS website

Enjoy the benefits of membership, with a magazine published 3 times a year, members discount on research service and selected publications, and more...

13/11/2025

Searching birth, marriage and death records shows you a list of results from our indexes.

These basic details can be very helpful in identifying the record you’re looking for. They include surname, forename, gender, year, registration district and more.

09/11/2025

Why did our ancestors not sign their name?

The simple answer would be that they could not write. This was the most common reason but is it the full story?

While examining the registers in Sorbie, Wigtownshire in 1863, the examiner noted, “Entries with 29 Marks. This proportion is very much too large. I am disposed to think that it arises from a too great a fastidiousness on the part of the Registrar with regard to calligraphy in signature. To be avoided in future if possible.”

What does this tell us? When we see an ancestor signed with an ‘X’ don’t jump to the conclusion that they could not read or write at all or that they did not attend school.

Education in Scotland in the early 1800s was widely available. By education, of course, I am particularly talking about reading and writing. Although basic, many children received this. In fact, if a family was poor the children may have received this education for free. There were, however, pressures that limited education.

As the cities grew the pressure on small schools grew and so did the pressure on the poor relief system that funded poorer students. Other pressures such as a family's need for young children to work also reduced the chances of our ancestors learning to read and write. Examples in the Royal Commission into the Employment and Condition of Children in Mines and Manufactories in 1842 show that some young children were working down mines from a very young age and had very little education.

That being said, many children in rural areas did go to school and as adults, would have been able to write their name. How many registrars, however, thought their writing style was simply not good enough to go in the registers?

08/11/2025

We have these local World War 1 books for sale

05/11/2025

Are you researching ancestors lost during World War1? We have a number of books covering local rolls of honour.

02/11/2025

Many families in Scotland followed the Scottish naming pattern. It is therefore all too easy to mix up the cousins. Use the occupation to work out who is who.

What’s the Scottish naming pattern I hear some ask? The most widely used pattern goes as follows:

1st son named after father's father
2nd son named after mother's father
3rd son named after father

1st daughter named after mother's mother
2nd daughter named after father's mother
3rd daughter named after mother

Let’s say John and Ann had two sons, James was born first, and William was born second. Both brothers would name their eldest son John. These two Johns may have been born about the same time and in the same place. It’s confusing! This was compounded in 1841 when the census rounded the age down to the nearest five years. One cousin could be 41 and another 44, but in the census, they may both be recorded as 40! It's very easy to get into a tangle.

Although people did sometimes change their occupation, it’s fairly unlikely that a married man would change occupation from a stone mason to a shoemaker. Both of these occupations would require an apprenticeship. Our ancestors would have served as an apprentice as a teenager and perhaps into their early 20s before they got married. How would a married man with children afford to be able to serve an apprenticeship and switch professions as we can today?

Of course, some occupations are the same but described differently. A shoemaker in one record may be described as a cordiner in another. A shipwright may also be described as a joiner. Or you may find a grocer being described as a victualler. If you come across an occupation that is uncommon today, check out the Dictionaries of the Scots Language to discover what it was.

By carefully noting the occupation and comparing it on each record, we are more likely to be able to trace our family history accurately and disentangle the cousins.

For more Scottish family history tips, join us at the Scottish Indexes Conference on Saturday 22 November 2025.

29/10/2025

Another of our library books focusing on the history of Scottish Gypsies and other travellers

26/10/2025

We appreciate Derrick Johnstone sharing the result of his research with us.

Here's a new resource that connects Borders and American families through connections originating in a Scottish colonial venture in the 1680s. It's called 'East Jersey Bound' https://eastjerseybound.scot and is home to a genealogical database with details of nearly 650 emigrants and over 2,000 of their kin and associates going back and forward a generation or so.

The emigrants were predominantly from the East of Scotland, and included from the Borders:
* merchants James and John Johnstone, sons of the minister in Lauder
* farmer's daughter Jean Moffat from Netherbarns and tailor John Foreman from Berwickshire, who were transported after their confinement with other Covenanters in the notorious 'Whigs Vault' in Dunnottar Castle
* John Cockburn from Kelso, successful as a mason in New Jersey and New York, and said to be one of the founders of freemasonry in America
* William Ridford, tenant farmer and Quaker from Lilliesleaf who emigrated with his whole family, and
* merchant William Haig from the Bemersyde family who played a significant role in the early days of the venture

East Jersey Bound also features, in addition to the database entries, a growing collection of:
* pen portraits of emigrants
* context pages: why did they leave Scotland and what became of them
* sources, maps, glossaries, and research notes
and a database user guide to help you get the most from your search.

The site is a by-product of research by Derrick Johnstone at Glasgow University https://theses.gla.ac.uk/85247/. This East Jersey story was arguably Scotland's only successful colonial undertaking, organised more than ten years before the disaster of Darien.

25/10/2025