Genealogy is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. The field of family history is broader than genealogy, and covers not just lineage but also family and community history and biography.
Galashiels is a town in the Scottish Borders with a population of around 12,600. Its name is often colloquially shortened to "Gala". The town is a major commercial centre for the Borders region with extensive history in the textile industry. Galashiels is the location of Heriot-Watt University's School of Textiles and Design.
A family reunion is an occasion when many members of an extended family congregate. Sometimes reunions are held regularly, for example on the same date of every year.
The Guild of One-Name Studies is a UK-based charitable organisation founded in 1979 for one-name studies.
FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is closely connected with the church's Family History Department. The Family History Department was originally established in 1894 as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) and is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch maintains a collection of records, resources, and services designed to help people learn more about their family history. Facilitating the performance of LDS ordinances for deceased relatives is another major aim of the organization. Although it requires user account registration, it offers free access to its resources and service online at FamilySearch.org. In addition, FamilySearch offers personal assistance at more than 5,100 family history centers in 140 countries, including the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Family Tree section allows user-generated content to be contributed to the genealogical database. As of February 2021, there are over 1.3 billion individuals in the tree and the historical records database contains over 5.7 billion digital images, including digitized books, digitized microfilm, and other digital records.
Coldingham is a village and parish in Berwickshire, Scottish Borders, on Scotland's southeast coastline, north of Eyemouth.
A one-name study is a project researching a specific surname, as opposed to a particular pedigree or descendancy. Some people who research a specific surname may restrict their research geographically and chronologically, perhaps to one country and time period, while others may collect all occurrences world-wide for all time.
The Essex Society for Family History is a family history society, that covers the county of Essex, England. It includes the former parts of the county, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, which are now unitary districts. Parts of historic Essex now in Greater London, are covered by the East of London Family History Society and the Waltham Forest Family History Society.
Cree is a surname which has several separate origins in England, Scotland and Ireland. It occurs in all those countries today and also in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. It is of Medium Frequency in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Spathaky 1998).
Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE was a large family history and genealogy event. A spin-off of the television show, the event ran annually in London, England. Since its inception in 2005 until it closed in 2017 the exhibition and surrounding events were hosted at the London Olympia and attracted 10 – 15,000 visitors per year. The show consisted mainly of exhibitions, stands and break-out sessions for individuals wishing to learn more about researching genealogy, family history and building family trees. The last event was before in 2017 before it closed permanently.
Old Gala House is a museum and conference centre situated in the Old Town area of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. The building was originally built as a tower house in 1457 by the Hoppringill (Pringle) family, who had been granted the lands of Gala by the Earl of Douglas. In 1583, Andrew Hoppringill carried out much improvement and extended the house as his family home. Further expansion took place in 1611, before Andrew returned to live at the family seat of Smailholm Tower in 1635, when his daughter, Jean, married Hugh Scott. A ceiling painting was rediscovered in 1952 celebrating that marriage. Hugh Scott, the new laird, carried out more improvements and extended the house. Further extensions were carried out in the 17th and 18th centuries, completing the edifice we see today. The five bay, U-shaped house is built of rubblestone and is embraced on three sides by gardens complete with water features.
Findmypast is a UK-based online genealogy service owned, since 2007, by British company DC Thomson. The website hosts billions of searchable records of census, directory and historical record information. It originated in 1965 when a group of genealogists formed a group named "Title Research". The first internet website went live in 2003.
The Ontario Genealogical Society, operating as Ontario Ancestors since early 2019, is the largest organization devoted to research into family history in Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1961 as a Registered Charity corporation, the Society has grown by 2020 to include 30 local branches covering all of Ontario and five Special Interest Groups.
TheGenealogist is a family history website that provides subscriptions for researchers to help search genealogy records in the United Kingdom. The site is run by Genealogy Supplies (Jersey) Ltd which is part of the S&N Group. Among its accomplishments, the company has completely transcribed the England and Wales censuses from 1841 to 1911 inclusive.
WikiTree, a free, shared social-networking genealogy website, allows users individually to research and to contribute to their own personal family trees while building and collaborating on a singular worldwide family tree within the same system. Chris Whitten, developer of the WikiAnswers website, set up WikiTree in 2008; the site is owned and hosted by Interesting.com, Inc. The site uses a “wiki markup" language that offers users the ability to create and edit personal profiles, categories and "free space" pages to document their family's history. As of July 2021 the WikiTree website had more than 800,000 registered members and included more than 27 million profiles, with 8.5 million having DNA connections. GenealogyInTime Magazine listed WikiTree as the 15th most popular genealogy site in January 2016.
The Genealogy Society of Norway was established on January 12, 1990 and is Norway's largest genealogical organization.
Free UK Genealogy is a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) acting as an umbrella organisation for FreeBMD, FreeREG and FreeCEN. The charity was formerly known as FreeBMD.
Clan Ralston is a Scottish clan. The clan is recognized as such by the Court of the Lord Lyon, but as it does not currently have a chief recognized by the Lord Lyon King of Arms it is considered an Armigerous clan.
Major Hugh Scott of Gala FRSE DL JP (1822–1877) was a 19th-century Scottish soldier
Gilad Japhet is an Israeli entrepreneur and genealogist. He is the founder and CEO of MyHeritage, a high-tech company that has developed a platform for preserving family history and creating family trees. It also offers DNA testing.
