Navigating scotlandspeople is easy to do. The one thing you need to know is how to search when you expect different spellings of a name. Here are some tips on how to use their wild card searches. ? means mystery letter- can be put anywhere in a name. * means more letters unknown- can be put at the end of a name. examples: Sm?th = Smyth, Smith, Smeth Sm?t* = Smyth, Smith, Smeth, Smythe, Smitty etc.. If your searching Mitchell, as I do a lot I use M?tch?l* = Metchal, Mitchall, Mitchelle etc. An interesting one is when I search Weir. Most of the time I can bet that the ie-ei are inverted. If I just search Weir, I just get Weir and visa versa. I can take care of this in once search by searching this: W??r = Wier, Weir, wear etc... Lets not forget Robbertson. Robbert* = Robbertsone, Robbertsoune etc.. The hard part is getting past the fact that they might not have doubled up the bb. In this case I use Rob* but that returns a great amount of records, so be sure you use a good first name. You can also use this on first names to. I do it a lot when searching a first name James as we know it could be spelled Jas Ja* Sm?t* could be James Smythe, Jas Smith or even Jane Smitty, so be aware of how you search to get the best returns. I know your ancestors probably usually used one spelling. But they were at the mercy of the clerks a lot of the time. I hope my tips have helped. I use scotlandspeople a lot. At first I shied away because it was a pay site, but I have really had great luck there. And the cost is reasonable. http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ Tammy Mowat Family International http://www.tammymitchell.com/clanmowat/international/ Ray Hennessy wrote: > 2009/3/1 Joan Hartman <jet2jeth@earthlink.net>: > >> ...I've never tried to navigate the Scotland's People >> site but a cousin of mine has and perhaps she can >> teach me the ropes. > __________________________________________ > > Hi List > > Some time ago [before my calendar fell into a black > hole] someone asked me to give them some tips on > using the Scotland's People website [ScP]. > I apologise to Rachel Collet and Judy Anderson for > the delay in responding. > > I have been working on a set of ideas which, for want > of a better hole, I have added to my names website. > If you go to www.whatsinaname.net and key in "ScP" > to the name field, you will be led to a set of pages with > my thoughts on how to use ScP. A direct link is > http://tinyurl.com/WIAN0003 > > NB NB These are only my ideas and may be deficient > in both rigour and accuracy. But for newbies like Joan, > I felt that a central pool of Ideas & Tips could be useful. > > There are only 5 detailed pages. Each should fit onto a > normal computer screen so it is by no means exhaustive. > > I welcome ANY suggestions, corrections, criticisms > etc. It may be best if you send your thoughts direct > to me to save overloading the List with non-relevant > discussions. >