Any amateur genealogists lurking researching Scottish families?

[BinBandit]

I'm just getting back into interest with this but a total amateur. Years ago I made a start on genes Reunited and had a basic tree which I'd paid for credits with Scotland's people to help get evidence for (birth death and marriage certs).

so about 10 years later I've decided to spend a bit more time on this and signed up to a basic membership of ancestry.com. I spent my free trial time and the first month taking details from other trees and from census information.

I'm starting to get to the point where I can't rely on other people's trees as things aren't feeling right. I couldn't get any of the certificate info or more recent census info and I thought I probably needed to upgrade my membership level, which I've now done. However, I'm no further forward in getting anything and I'm not sure if it's because it's Scottish records, if I'm not doing it right or if that's just the way it is for the whole UK. Would I be as well ditching Ancestry now?

Can anyone enlighten me? I'm back to the 1700s and have no non Scots yet!

I am on ancestry and its worth it to pay for the DNA test too. You might not get any 'close' matches but if you work on both the DNA and the tree, you will be able to figure things out. I connected with a branch of my DMs Irish family and thanks to their trees, traced my maternal grandfather's line back to the 1700s Ireland..
My DFs tree was more complicated as there were adoptions, illegitimate births etc. This is where you really need to rely on Scotland's People. They were great. I emailed them to ask if there were any births registered to DGM as the parent and gave the addresses DGM had stayed at. Scotland's People contacted me to say who they had and that helped me find aunties who were adopted.
Scotland's People also told me that prior to 1930, there wasn't a proper adoption register so anyone could be given a baby to raise and call their own. I think this is why I haven't been able to find my GGMs birth certificate. Other family members refuse to believe she was adopted because there is no official register of it and that ties into what you said about not being able to rely on others trees.

Scotland's People also told me that prior to 1930, there wasn't a proper adoption register so anyone could be given a baby to raise and call their own

This is very true, and very common. I have come across it very recently for a client I was working with, his ancestor was born in very bad circumstances to a teenage mother in the Poorhouse, the baby was given to a childless married sister of the mother to raise. The baby then grew up using the married aunt's surname. It was only because the client knew that this ancestor had grown up with a maternal aunt that we were able to untangle it all - finding the child on a census with the aunt, looking for a marriage certificate to find out the aunt's birth surname, building her family tree and identifying which of her sisters was the birth mother. Did eventually find a birth certificate but it wasn't easy.

(So for example the child grew up as John BROWN, but that was the aunt's married name. Before marriage she was Ann JACKSON. Drew up her family tree using census whatever, looked for children born to her sisters. Found a birth in the right month for her sister Mary, ordered the certificate and there it was - a child called John, born to Mary JACKSON, no father).

Adoption was very common and it was also equally common for the adopted child to take the surname of the adoptive parents. If it's adoption within the wider family you might be able to disentangle it all with the records but if it was random family friends or acquaintances who took in the baby you've no hope.

This is where DNA can help. I always say CAN help because it really all depends how many good matches you have. I have a massive family, loads of second and third cousins, and about 2 matches because nobody has tested.

I never order certificates from Scotland's people, I'd be bankrupt if I did.
I just look people up in the index, so much easier now that it's free to do that bit as I can play around until I'm sure I've got the right one. I'll then pay for the record which gives all the info I need.

I also have hints on my ancestry account that I don't add to my trees as I have no way of proving they're definitely right. I too have seen the born in 1890,married in 1892 scenario in other people's trees.

My granny's dad was unofficially adopted back in around 1901. That adds a whole new set of problems to my tree. I've not been brave enough to do the DNA test yet, maybe one day I will and then be able to untangle his story.

Agree that you can play around with the index and it's very useful if you're dealing with an unusual name. But if all you have to go on is John Smith, born in Glasgow in 1910 +/- 5 years, you're going to get dozens of hits. That's where paying the £15 or whatever it is for a day at the National Library looking at as many John Smiths as you like can be worth the money.

Thanks again everyone, births are most of the problem I think. There isn't really a lot to play with unless I'm missing something?

I'm looking mainly in Edinburgh for people with common first names, no middle name and a surname that was the most used in the Edinburgh telephone directory (in later years) so a search will bring up multiple pages even if it's the exact year of birth.

Marriage is easier as you've got two names to coordinate.

My strategy for the search if you get to the Scotland's people is to start with what you know - the marriage certificate for this man with the common name.

Note the parents' names on the marriage certificate - Scottish marriage certificates are brilliant for this as they give the names of the mothers not just the fathers. Then you can work through the births you have potentially identified, looking for the same names. Yes it's time consuming but if you have unlimited access for the day, it's do-able.

And write down the certificate reference at the top of the page so you can find it again!!!

If you have money to throw at it, this is the sort of work that professional genealogists do all the time and someone in Edinburgh would charge approx £20-£30 an hour to do it for you, plus travel expenses and the Scotland's People fee.

Thanks again Kassandra, that's definitely the way that I started out when I did this years ago, witnesses are often siblings too and then you have the details of who recorded deaths that I also found useful.

Those rates are actually pretty reasonable but at the moment I guess I'm (sort of) enjoying the detective work. Working on both trees gives me a break from one bit when I'm stuck.

Knowing how much it costs would maybe encourage me to seek someone out if I got really stuck or frustrated.

I've already resolved a few things that were niggling in my mind. I now want to actually spend some time fleshing out the lives of the people rather than just having names and dates I. E. An ancestor was a Carter and lived in Kings stables Road in Edinburgh and you can see the archway at that address which would have led to the stables. Another lived on an estate in Aberdeenshire and I found the estate up for sale about 20 years later and it details all the buildings in the estate including the one they lived in.

Their lives are becoming more real to me and its making me slow down more which is a good thing.