Our Library Collections: Ireland and Scotland

One of the newer reference books in our
collection for Irish research

One in a series by CGS member Chris Pattillo, highlighting some of our holdings at the CGS Library in Oakland.  For a fuller listing of books, journals, and more, consult the CGS Library catalog in WorldCat.

Our books for Irish and Scottish research are combined with Great Britain in section CS400.  We have a ten-volume set of Scottish Record Society books that were given to the society by George R. Dorman. Each volume covers a different record set. For example, volume 35 is The Register of Marriages For the Parish of Edinburgh, 1701-1750, published in 1908. Volumes 40-50, bound together, are Parish Registers of Canisbay, Durness, Kilbarchan, Wigtownshire and Minnigaff. These volumes are packed with lists of names and dates.

A more recent publication is A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your Scottish Ancestors, written by Linda Jonas and Paul Milner and published in 2002. This reference is a good starting point for anyone who has not yet tackled their Scottish ancestors. The book offers a step-by-step process for doing research. Chapter One is "Getting Started," followed by "Research Process Guidelines," "Uniqueness of Scottish Research," "Accessing Internet Resources," and more. Unique to this book are graphic icons to guide the user through the material. For example, there is an icon of a warning hand indicating: “Stop before you make a mistake.”

An excellent source for beginning
Scottish family research

We have a similar book for Irish research – Tracing Your Irish Family History by Anthony Adolph. It includes a section on first steps for tracing your ancestry back to Ireland, including a survey of Irish genealogy resources available in numerous countries, from the U.S. to Canada to Argentina. This book is very well illustrated.

One of our older Irish references is a hefty tome; A Genealogical and Heraldic History of Landed Gentry of Ireland by Sir Bernard Burke, published in 1912. This is a dense compilation of land and family records – birth, marriage and death records and pedigrees.

Another of our newer books is John Grenham's Tracing Your Irish Ancestors (2006). Each chapter focuses on a different record set, including general register office records, census records, church records, property and valuation records, genealogical office records, emigration records, and more. This book includes a lengthy section on Roman Catholic Parish Registers listing “all copies of Roman Catholic parish registers, microfilm and database transcript" to be found as of 2005.

A good book to start on your Irish research

As I worked on writing this article I realized I no longer have an excuse for avoiding researching my Irish great-grandmother Mary McGowan. The tools I need to get started are right here in our library.

Copyright © 2019 by California Genealogical Society

Our Library Collections: International Books Introduction

Two beginner guides published in 2007

One in a series by CGS member Chris Pattillo, highlighting some of our holdings at the CGS Library in Oakland.  For a fuller listing of books, journals, and more, consult the CGS Library catalog in WorldCat.

Today I decided to start a series on our international books. I’ll begin with a confession – until I started writing this series, I hadn’t known we had such a large collection of books on places outside the United States. I’m guessing that I am not alone in this gross misconception. For others like me I want to tell you about our wonderful collection of books from places beyond our national boundaries. We have a very large collection for Great Britain, a good number from Germany, and collections for Canada, Sweden and more.

Our international books begin where the Family Histories end. There you will first find an assortment of books for Canada and a few from Baja California, Barbados, Bermuda, Canada, Cuba . . . You get the idea. I found a pair of books published by Ancestry Publishing in 2007. One is Finding Your Canadian Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide and a similar book for Mexican Ancestors. Each of these books is a how-to-find-records source. The one for Canada has twenty-six chapters and four appendices that cover such topics as libraries and archives of Canada, Canadian geography, immigration, Aboriginals, Acadians, and each state within Canada.

Two volumes on Scots research for Canada

We also have two volumes of Some Early Scots in Maritime Canada by Terrence M. Punch published in 2011. For anyone with Scottish ancestry these may be books you’ve missed and may want to check out.

CS-400 is where you will find books on Great Britain and Ireland. Like other sections this one begins with several sets of journals. One is The English Genealogist. We have ten years of these covering 1976-1985. Next is The Genealogist New Series, for which we have issues spanning the years 1906-1921. A bookplate inside the oldest copy indicates it is a loan to CGS made in 1916 . . . I wonder if the donor may want them back soon. The covers on these journals are quite tattered but the content is intact. (Yes, I added a blue ribbon to alert our book repair team that help is needed). In total we have about five shelves just for various journals for Great Britain. Next week I’ll tell you more about our books for Great Britain.

One of several journals in our collection for British researchers

Copyright © 2019 by California Genealogical Society