This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Spotlight shines on family history
03/12/2002
A Scottish Family History Research Service is to be set
up with a grant from the Executive of £1.6 million.
The service, to be fully operational in 2006, will
create a 'one-stop-shop' for genealogy research by bringing
together services provided separately by project partners
the General Register Office for Scotland, National Archives
of Scotland and Court of the Lord Lyon.
There will be a family history 'campus' based around the
General Register House and New Register House
buildings.
Online and other facilities will be integrated to
provide a seamless and enhanced service to family
historians.
Deputy Justice Minister Hugh Henry said:
"I am very pleased to announce as part of Spending
Review 2002 the approval of £1.6 m of funding over four
years for this extremely innovative and valuable
project.
"This will involve three of the most respected
institutions in government in Scotland in pooling their
many centuries' worth of records and expertise to provide a
modern, seamless and customer-oriented service for family
historians.
"This reflects well the Executive's priorities of
cross-cutting initiatives and putting the emphasis on
service delivery. So we are pleased to have agreed funding
for the project as part of this year's Spending Review. We
have allocated £1.6 million over the next four years to
help with the capital costs of creating a first class
facility. This will not only be of value to Scottish
ancestor hunters, but to international genealogical
tourists."
Tourism and Culture Minister Mike Watson said:
"Genealogy is the third most popular interest among
people using the World Wide Web. Its importance to Scotland
is illustrated by the fact the 20 per cent of US visitors
to Scotland said that tracing their family heritage was the
reason behind their visit. This has huge potential for our
tourism industry.
"It will provide a family history experience as well as
a research facility and will build on the resources already
available to genealogists through services such as
ancestralscotland.com which I launched in January this
year."
The Scottish Family History Research Service is intended
to build on work already begun in creating digital images
of their records, and online versions of indexes and
catalogues.
It will enable staff to give a fuller, more tailored
service to genealogists to provide enhanced exhibition
facilities, and to exploit more fully the visitor potential
of the Register House buildings.
A part of the project will encourage local authorities
to set up similar one-stop-shops in their areas.
In addition, the Scottish Family History Research
Service will bring together the various internet facilities
offered by the project partners to improve the links
between them, and work towards seamless online searching of
the resources they contain.
At present, the main records which individuals use as
the basis for their family history are held by three
separate institutions (General Register Office for Scotland
(GROS), National Archives of Scotland (NAS) and the Court
of the Lord Lyon).
They occupy two buildings - General Register House and
New Register House - which lie in close proximity at the
East End of Princes Street in Edinburgh. The project
announced today aims to exploit this proximity to create a
Register House campus that is fully integrated behind the
scenes and seamless to the customer.
GROS is an associated department of the Executive and
forms part of the Scottish Administration. One of its
functions is to make its genealogical database available to
members of the public. It holds the statutory registers of
births, marriages and deaths and census records for
Scotland and Old Parish Registers of the Church of
Scotland.
NAS is an Executive Agency and Associated Department of
the Scottish Executive. NAS has one of the most varied
collections of archives in the British Isles. It is the
main archive for sources for the history of Scotland as a
separate kingdom, her role in the British Isles and the
links between Scotland and many other countries over the
centuries.
NAS holds records spanning the 12
th to 21
st centuries, touching on virtually every aspect
of Scottish life. As well as being the repository for the
public and legal records of Scotland, NAS also holds many
local and private archives. It also advises Scottish
government departments, institutions, businesses and
private individuals on the care of their records.
On behalf of the Sovereign the Lord Lyon King of Arms
exercises the Royal Prerogative to grant Arms to 'virtuous
and well deserving persons'. The Court of the Lord Lyon is
a court of law, and deals with petitions for grants of
Arms. The Court holds the Registers of Arms and of
Genealogies as well as other collections.