Hi folks, those who read books, attend conferences, take on-line courses, etc, know that it has been difficult to get hold of Scottish Catholic parish records even if you did 'git ejikated' because ....the advice given was to contact someone to research in the Glasgow church archives and/or the Scottish Archives in Edinburgh. This is doubly frustrating because the records of the Scottish Established Church have been the easiest to get for decades (indexed in Family Search, available on mcrofilm). Probably these records are of interest to more of us here than we realize. In any case they're of critical interest to many Scots whose ancestors were Irish Catholics as well as Highlanders since many Highlanders remained Catholic. I subscribe to a blog "British Genes" http://britishgenes.blogspot.com/ that has posted an update. You subscribe to a blog like this by clicking on the red RSS feed (on this site it's in the lower left and says 'subscribe to a reader'). Then you add it to your reader of choice: yahoo, google...whatever. I use google. I navigate to igoogle.com every day and a whole page comes up of my favorite blogs, etc. I can see what's new. You can sometimes sub through email. It's one way to learn a little more every day .... free. What I learned today is there is an archive site: http://www.scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk If you prowl around it for a while you'll find a page with a list of holdings: http://www.scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk/FamilyHistory/ParishRegisterholdings/tabid/82/Default.aspx It also has a list of what is held in Edinburgh: http://www.scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk/FamilyHistory/ScotlandsPeopleavailabilityofrecords/tabid/164/Default.aspx This page also identifies what has and has not been digitized and made available on line at Scotland's People. This page lists archives that hold records: http://www.scottishcatholicarchives.org.uk/Archives/tabid/67/Default.aspx And of course on the front page it says: " Just under half a million birth and baptismal records dating from 1703 to 1908 have been made available via the ScotlandsPeople website. 7 October 2009 ." So there is more at Scotland's People than just the Presbyterian records previously indexed and available on microfilm at via FamilySearch. Its website is http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ . Note: usually this is not the list to trowl for good advice on researching in Scotland and seeking contacts regarding people from or in Scotland. The reason is that Scotland is not Ireland. Canada is not the USA, right? They're different places with different records situations (due to different laws, history, social situations, etc,etc etc.). If you think they are the same, then go find me sassines in Ireland .... or ballyboes in Scotland. In the one the parish records are Presbyterian. In the other there are multiple types of parishes but few church records before about 1820. In the one most people are named in church records, in the other few are. The one has censuses in the 19th century and the other doesn't. These differences mean one must use different strategies. Trying to apply a simple Scottish research in Ireland will usually result in frustration. They're different. All we try to do here is succeed at Irish genealogy. The Scots experts are elsewhere -- on Scottish lists. Adhering to this common sense strategy also keeps us in good standing with our host, Rootsweb who don't like it when we query in the wrong list -- the people we are looking for are probably on the right list, waiting for our query and we 'blew it' by querying on the Russian list for some lost Albanians. Still, for those attempting to trace ancestors across the Irish Sea, it seems like a free search at Scotlands People might be useful! Here it is, 10:41 AM and I've already learned something today <grin>. Linda Merle