This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: Forfarian Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.britisles.scotland.ans.general/6030.3/mb.ashx Message Board Post: It's very difficult to answer that without knowing what you already have! My answer might vary depending on the time frame and the sort of people your ancestors were, or, more specifically, whether they might have owned land at one time. What to send them with is a decent camera plus as nearly as possible everything you know about the people you want to research, in a form that they can easily refer to as they go. If, for example, you have your tree online on a web site like A******* or G**** R*******, and you find yourself trying to research in a building where there is no wi-fi, you won't be able to refer to your tree as you go. (I hold all the information about my family in a genealogy database, and I carry it around in a netbook so I always have everything to hand. When I find any information of interest, I can then type it straight into the database, which is quicker than transcribing it by hand and then having to type it later.) Buy good detailed maps of the area(s) you want to visit. The widely available Ordnance (Not Ordinance with an 'i'!) Survey Landranger series is good for roads, but obviously doesn't have room to name as many places as the more detailed Explorer series, and you need more of the Explorers to cover an area. You can also buy facsimiles of older maps which may show places that no longer exist. Have a good look in the historic maps online at www.nls.uk, and if necessary (buy and) print off the relevant parts of the maps. If you are going to need to visit the Scotland's People Centre and/or the National Archives at all, do that first, before you head for Angus or Perthshire. Whatever else you plan, do not even think about driving a car anywhere in Edinburgh city centre. It's difficult to move and very expensive to stop, even assuming that you can find a parking space to stop in. Use the bus service, which is excellent. I echo the advice to do as much as possible online before you arrive. Don't arrive at a church expecting to find old baptismal records; very few churches still hold their own historical registers. As well as the Tay Valley Family History Centre, which should be your fist port of call after Edinburgh, you might find Angus Archives of interest. Also the respective archives in Perth, and in whatever part of Lanarkshire your McCullochs came from. If you are planning a visit to an archive, you must be well prepared before you go there. Ask them well in advance what information they have that might be of use to you, and tell them exactly when you will be visiting and what you want to look at. Documents are often stored off-site, and it can take up to a couple of days to fetch them in, so if you have only one day and you want to see a certain document, you want to be sure that it will be there waiting for you. Have a look through the Scottish Archive Network http://www.scan.org.uk/ and the catalogue of the National Archives of Scotland ww.nas.gov.uk Old newspapers can be accessed online, and the National Library of Scotland also has a large number of trade and street directories, so you don't need to look at those while you are in Scotland. Things you cannot access from outside Scotland include births after 1912, marriages after 1937 and deaths after 1962; the Registers of Sasines (changes of ownership of land and buildings), legal records of all kinds (deeds, divorces, criminal and civil legal cases), estate archives including information about tenants and employees, business archives, central and local government records, health records, poor law records, most valuation rolls, registers of electors, school and most university records, episcopal and free church registers, etc etc. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.