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This work advocates a broader, more searching approach to family history than mere genealogy. Based on the author's experience as a local history librarian in the East Lothian district of Scotland, he examines the Scottish family in relation to the great movements of local history, while providing instruction on the sources and techniques needed for successful family history research. Trades, professions, religions, clans and surnames, migration and emigration, labor and industry, kin and community--all are dealt with in the intimate context of family history. So, too, are the conventional sources of genealogical data such as church records, memoirs, and government records.

A manual for the researcher into family history, this is also a history of the family as it has developed in Scotland from the time of the clans to the present day. This work is both scholarly and readable.

See also the companion book Scottish Local History.


EDITORIAL REVIEWS

"...these two books [Scottish Local History and Scottish Family History] provide an excellent introduction to researching and writing the history of a Scottish family or locality...there is no question that both of these books are extremely well done and should benefit anyone who wants to know more about Scotland and Scottish sources."--THE NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD, Vol. 121, No. 3 (July 1990).

"These two books...provide an excellent background on the records and the social conditions in Scotland needed in order to undertake an investigation of Scottish families and to write a history which places the individual family members in the society to which they belonged."--THE VIRGINIA GENEALOGIST, Vol. 34, No. 3, (July-September 1990).