Resarch in Dundee - where to start?

[ScouseBoy]

You could try contacting the cemeteries dept in the library who gave me a plan of the cemetery with grave numbers for my relatives, which led to my finding an uncle I didn't know about from the grave stone.

In my own personal research experience,  I find the old Headstones  a fund of information.      My great grandfathers headstone  (died circa 1900 )  contains so many names of children and their ages.

[IMBER]

This seems a bit disappointing:

http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/supportservs/genealogyunit/

Imber

[isobelw]

Tay Valley Family History Society might be worth a visit ( tayvalleyfhs.org.uk). They are open 10 to 4 weekdays and 10 to midday on a Saturday. Staffed by volunteers who will be both knowledgeable and helpful and they will have access to census records etc for that area.
Isobel

[Beavances]

I know understand IMBER why the Dundee City Genealogy  looks disappointing! At first  clicked it open and thought it looked perfect and all under one roof too - then I saw that it is not open to the public, so disappointing. However they will do some searches for you - at an hourly charge - so I well use them if I don't manage to complete my searches next week.

The Tay Valley FHS looks as though it will be very helpful to me, thank you for this information isobelw - this is the sort of place I usually only find out exists after I have visited somewhere! Their web site is informative and also gives details of rough costs. Hopefully one of their volunteers will be able to steer me in the right direction rather than the 'hit-n-miss' approach I found using the on-line information without having the benefit of local knowledge.

Thank you both.

[Forfarian]

Hi Next week I will be in Dundee for just two days ( Friday & Monday) and would like to use my time to research family history. Can anyone recommend the best places to go for research?

The Scotland's People Centre in Edinburgh. This is by far the best place to construct the basic tree because it's the only place you will get all the birth, marriage and death records, plus the census, at the click of a mouse. It costs £15 for a day but you can easily access all the information you would have to pay-per-view for in the online system, plus all the more recent certificates, at no additional cost.

If you already have your basic tree with all the births, deaths, marriages and census, then you are ready to start on local archives and record offices.

are there any advantages to visiting the records offices

Once you have your basic tree, then the local records offices or archives are useful for other
information. The information in archives varies enormously, so you need to scrutinise the catalogues of each one to find out what is likely to be useful for your particular family.

or is it still the same process as using Scotland's People?

A few local archives (Aberdeen, Glasgow, Hawick, Inverness and possibly others) also offer access to the Scotland's People system. I do not know whether or not Dundee does. Otherwise no, each local archive has its own systems.

You may be able to find other resources of interest by searching the catalogue of the Scottish Archive Network www.scan.org.uk - sometimes information of interest is in a university or private archive. For example I know that the archives of the University of Dundee holds a lot of archive material not obviously related to the university itself, so that might be worth looking at. http://arccat.dundee.ac.uk/ mentions Business Records: relating to businesses in the Tayside area in particular to the linen and jute industries and the latter’s connections with India

family history centres will give you access to modern records

Only the half dozen or so archives which are linked in to the Scotland's People system can do this. Specifically, the family history centres run by family history societies and the LDS church cannot offer access to certificates later than the online cut-off dates.

One source you might find useful for checking where your people lived is the various Post Office and other directories on the National Library of Scotland web site www.nls.uk - go for the digital gallery.

[Beavances]

What wealth of information and ideas I have now got - brilliant! I wish now I had posted this before I had booked the train tickets as I probably would then have started, as Forfarian suggested, with ScotlandsPeople in Edinburgh. Amazing that the records are available there for just a daily fee - this is something I will definitely pursue at a later date.
For the moment though Forfarian the links you have provided to the post offices list show records that Alexander Laurie started his own company in manufacturing jute products - we did not know this before today so thank you very much for that link. I can also see from the archives at the university that there are some company records archived.
Thank you all who have read and or added to my post - I now feel that my time in Dundee will be really productive. 

[Forfarian]

 

Glad the information has been useful, and happy hunting!

[jonn]

Was Alexander Laurie's, mother Margaret Machray. his father James Laurie.

Regards,
Jonn

[Beavances]

Yes - that is the family. Have you managed to find something else?