Immigrant Ancestor's Project from Brigham Young University

The Immigrant Ancestor's Project is currently focusing on Ireland, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain*

This project from BYU could prove to be very useful for genealogists and immigration historians. From the website:

The Immigrant Ancestors Project, sponsored by the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University, uses emigration registers to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in their native countries, which is not found in the port registers and naturalization documents in the destination countries. Volunteers working with scholars and researchers at Brigham Young University are creating a database of millions of immigrants based on these emigration registers.

The records types being abstracted, listed here, run from 1821-1924.   I searched for "Scotland" and 1700 results were returned. That is infinitesimally small compared to the numbers who left Scotland during the century beginning 1821. But still it's a start. By comparison, over 3700 results were returned for "Germany."  I clicked on some of the emigrants and found results returned from three collections:

• Colonial Office Records: Australia. Registers of forms and circulars sent to intending emigrants 1831-1833 
• Examination of Invalid Soldiers
• East India College Writers Petitions

The Examinations for Invalid Soldiers, from the early 1850s, are really great because they include name, rank, regiment, age, foreign service, surgeon's report, trade, height, eye color, complexion and residence.

For the genealogist or family historian this site and the abstracts will be a gold mine, especially because it includes documents from much of Europe, not just Scotland. It might not be so useful for immigration historians in their role as researcher as there does not seem to be a way to search by document or to export the abstracted information in a table. However, in a historian' s role as teacher, the site might be useful for creating exercises for students.  Projects for students I can think of include comparing emigrants during a particular decade from different countries of Europe, comparing the documents themselves and what they say about government control and the movement of populations, or maybe even selecting a few emigrants and following their paper trail in the old and new worlds.

Happy Searching!

*This is just me being picky: Obviously, for Germany and Italy they mean (or I hope they mean) the collection of city-states that now make-up the modern nation-states. Portugal is outlined and it is not the same thing as Spain, so I'm not sure what's going on there.  Also, I wonder if when they say "England" they really mean the United Kingdom since that entire nation-state is outlined. That's a common, but unfortunate mistake. Many years ago Yahoo! News referred to Tony Blair as the Prime Minister of England. That's a bit like saying Barack Obama is the President of California. See the map and text on the BYU site here.

2014 Update: The project is still ongoing and there is now a much better map available on the site.

The Highlander 2011 Directory

If I had used the good sense God gave me the other day, I might have remembered that in my stack of unread magazines was the 2011 Directory Issue from the Highlander Magazine. The Directory includes information from all entities that responded to their questionnaire.

In the Directory ares lists of

• Clan Societies
• Scottish Societies
• Pipe Bands
• Scottish Dance Groups
• Vendors
• Scottish Business and Cultural Groups
• Clan Chiefs
• Scholarships and Financial Aid
• Editorial Index for 2010
• and ... wait for it ... Highland Games and Gathering Calendar

The several lists will be useful for those of you want to learn about recent and distant Scottish roots,  buy or sell Scottish goods, attend Highland Games, or reach an audience interested in all things Scottish.

Apparently the Directory is only available for subscribers, but I suppose you could email them to see if they have any back issues for sale. If you would like to be included in the 2012 Directory, please ask the magazine staff for a questionnaire and particulars.

'Tis the Season - for Highland Games

Ohio Scottish Games, ca. 2006

Recently, I received a brochure advertising this year's Ohio Scottish Games to be held at the Lorain County Fair Grounds, 23-25 June 2011. I'm excited about this year's Games because one of the musical acts scheduled is Brother, who originally hail from Australia. Who knew that the pipes and the didgeridoo went so well together? My mother and sister heard them many years ago at the Games in Los Angeles and we have a small collection of their albums. It'll be fun to hear them live!

I looked for a listing of Games in the United States, but I only found a partial one here. If your state isn't list use your favorite search engine to look for Games in your neck of the woods. There will probably be Highland dancing, caber tossing, clan societies, exhibitions, food (some even vaguely British) and vendors selling all sorts of Scottish goods like Iron Bru and Mars Bars. It's a nice day out.

Lists of Highland Games in Scotland can be found here and here.

Historical Insights, Focus on Research: Newspapers...

Demography and the Imperial Public Sphere before Victoria: Historical Insights, Focus on Research: Newspapers...: "The relationship between the periodical press, especially newspapers, and the study of history is a long and tumultuous one. Newspapers prov..."

In this post M.H. Beals lets readers know about a guide she has co-authored with Lisa Lavender about understanding newspapers in the Focus on Research series from the History Subject Centre. The other guides in this series are oral history and quantitative skills for historians. I think the newspaper and oral history guides could be useful for historians, students, and genealogists as each group will likely encounter both in some form or another. Migration historians often have to cope with numbers, I know I did, so the quantitative booklet skills will likely very useful.

There are other interesting publications by the History Subject Centre so have look around their publications page. There is a Focus on Teaching Series which includes titles on teaching the Enlightenment and Medieval Castles. There are also several briefing reports including one on International Students by Beal and another one Building Inclusive Academic Communities co-authored by Kimm Curran (a fellow student of mine from the University of Glasgow).

It seems as if my summer reading list has just gotten longer...

Talks & Exhibition: Celebrating Saltire: 75 Years of Scottish Culture

If you are looking for something to do this upcoming Bank Holiday weekend consider helping the Saltire Society celebrate its 75th anniversary. On May 28th, they will host a day of talks and exhibitions at the Trades Hall, 85 Glassford Street, Glasgow from 10:30-4:40. 

Scheduled speakers include Speakers include Prof. Chris Harvie, Rab Wilson, Prof. Catriona MacDonald, Prof. Douglas Gifford, Dr Jonny Murray, Prof. Robert Crawford, Hugh Andrew, Prof. Ian Brown, Prof. Alexander Broadie, Paul Scott, Mark Buckland, John Carmichael, Joyce McMillan, Cate Newton, Ron Butlin, Dr. Wilson McLeod, Roger Kelly and Prof. Ted Cowan.

I don't know if any of the talks will be specifically about emigration, but one can hardly discuss Scottish life and culture without mentioning migration. 

Admission is free but donations will be gratefully received at the venue.

For tickets please send a SASE to  Sarah Mason, Celebrating Saltire Ticket, Saltire Society, 9 Fountain Close, 22 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TF, Scotland.

... posted with thanks to Lizanne Henderson.

Conference: Eighteenth Century Scottish Studies Society at the University of Aberdeen, July 2011

The program for this year's annual conference, The Art and Science of Progress, has recently been posted. A secondary theme of the meeting is the 250th anniversary of James Macpherson's Ossianic poetry. This conference is great fun and attracts scholars from many disciplines, each of whom is interested in aspects of eighteenth-century Scotland. This year's event features two panel devoted Scotland and America.

The following panel is scheduled for 2:30 pm Thursday, July 7th:
Scottish Emigrants in North America (1b)

C Jan Swearingen (Texas A&M University)
‘From Aberdeen to Hanover: Patrick Henry and the Presbyterians of Virginia’

Ned Landsman (Stony Brook University)
‘Scottish Episcopalians and North America’

Juliet Shields (University of Washington), ‘Home and Away: Emigration and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Poetry’

Scheduled for 2pm, Friday, 8 July:
Scotland and America (4b)

Esther Mijers (University of Reading),
‘Empire before Empire’

Roger Fernier (Adrian College),
‘John Witherspoon on American Progress’

Andrew Hook (University of Glasgow),
‘Francis Jeffrey’s American Journal in 1813’

Colin Kidd (my internal examiner at Glasgow, now of Queen's University Belfast) will be giving a plenary talk on ‘Hypocrisy and Dissimulation in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Case of the Rev. Alexander Fergusson of Kilwinning.’

Visit this page for information on lodging and registration. Go here for more information on the ECSSS.