Linda Jonas and Paul Milner have written a new book. The complete title is A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Scottish Ancestors – How to find and record your unique heritage. This 240-page paperback provides easy, step-by-step instructions for researching Scottish records. I had a chance to read the book this week and must admit that I spent quite a bit of time with it. That’s probably because I have two Scotsmen in my family tree who arrived in Canada with the British Army during the American Revolution. I have never been able to trace their Scottish origins. This new book provided several clues of what I might look at next.

I found that A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Scottish Ancestors covered a lot of topics dealing with researching records from Scotland. Here is a list of the chapter titles:

1. Getting Started
2. Research Process Guidelines
3. Uniqueness of Scottish Research
4. Accessing Internet Resources
5. The Scots Origins Database
6. Accessing Library and Family History Center Resources
7. Civil Registration Records
8. Census Records
9. Church Records
10. Scottish Land and Probate Records
11. What’s Next?

The end of the book contains a six-page index that helps find specific topics in the rest of the book.

The authors of A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Scottish Ancestors assume that the reader knows nothing about genealogy research. The first two chapters contain introductory information about how to do genealogy research. Experienced genealogists will want to start at chapter three. The last nine chapters are full of useful information for newcomers and old-timers alike.

I found the writing style to be light and easy to read. However, the material presented is first-rate all the way. Jonas and Milner do an excellent job of suggesting which records may contain information about the ancestor you seek. Best of all, the book contains many, many illustrations showing the typical records that one might find. It has pictures of birth records, death records, marriage registers, census records, and even parish mortcloth rental records.

Mortcloth? What is that? Well, this book told me that mortcloths were rented to cover a coffin during a funeral ceremony. Parishes in Scotland kept a record of mortcloth rentals, including the name of the deceased as well as the name of the person who paid the fee. The person who paid the mortcloth rental fee typically was the next of kin. Many of these records have been preserved and provide an excellent substitute when death records cannot be found.

The authors have excellent credentials. Linda Jonas is a former president of the British Isles Family History Society - U.S.A. She is the director of the McLean Family History Center, which specializes in British ancestry. Paul Milner is a former president of the British Interest Group of Wisconsin and Illinois (BIGWILL) and a professional family historian specializing in British research. They are also co-authors of A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your English Ancestors.

A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Scottish Ancestors is an easy read and full of useful information. Linda Jonas and Paul Milner did an excellent job with this one. The book is published by Betterway Books, publishers of Family Tree Magazine. The book costs $19.99 (U.S. funds). It is available from most bookstores if you order ISBN 1-55870-599-6. It is also available at the Family Tree Magazine website.

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