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.