Are you on a quest for Ancestors? So many people are today.
The internet has made it possible for many people to start their quest. In particular, we’re very well served with access to Scottish civic and parochial records. But these only take you so far…
My objective is to help people with their research, to provide services for those who can’t access records and to assist with the skills I’ve developed over the years. That’s not only in seeking out your ‘family tree’, but in helping you find the context: the conditions of your ancestors’ lives, the political and economic circumstances in which they lived.
Marion Fisher, 1845-1912
My training is as a social researcher, and I use this not only to help look for family patterns and ways of finding and matching your own kinship, but in looking at the patterns and processes of gender and social class that affected what they did, where they lived, why they moved and who they - maybe - thought they were.
And, as to my own ‘family tree’ - I started exploring this seriously many years ago, as part of my studies for my PhD. However since I was a small child I was fascinated by family stories, and so wanted to know who these people were, what languages they spoke, where they lived and the conditions of this lives - and how their lives connected with mine today.
The portrait is of Marion Fisher - born at the Bridge Inn, Linlithgow Bridge, and my great-grandmother. The testament of which a part is shown on the home page is for one of her ancestors, a merchant in Linlithgow burgh.
Some of my own ancestors’ story is at wyrdswell.co.uk/ancestors/
The Bridge Inn, Linlithgow Bridge, owned and run for around 100 years by Marion Fisher’s ancestors and relatives. Now it’s
under new management and is being redeveloped - the photo is from a few years back, and so is already ‘history’.