Is there room for a Scottish genealogy magazine?

[Chris Paton]

There are four or five main UK genealogy magazines on the shelves, a couple of which I occasionally contribute to, which tend to be very English subject dominated, and quite naturally of course. There are a couple of history based magazines in Scotland, but would a Scottish based genealogy magazine ever be a good idea?

Don't panic, I'm not about to go onto Dragon's Den - I'm just interested in people's opinions!!

Chris

[sheilajim]

Hi Chris

I would certainly be interested in a Scottish Genealogy Magazine. Every genealogical magazine that I look at seems to focus on American or English Genealogy. For that reason I don't subscribe to any of them.

Regards

Sheila

[emanday]

I agree with Sheila. I've tried a couple of the mags but don't bother with them now.

A Scottish one would be of real interest to me too.

[wini]

Chris,
I think there would be. I would like to see one. I don't buy the magazines on the market. I don't want to pay fifteen $A for a very small Scottish content.
However, I am sure market research will tell you if it is cost effective.

wini

[Pandabean]

Yeh i would definately be interested. Every other mag I have read is all English orientated with very little information on the Scots. Although it would also be interesting to talk about Scottish soldiers in the Great War.

[Muriel]

I don't subscribe to any of the present mags but would be interested in one with specifically Scottish content.

Muriel

[Hannah29]

Hello Chris

Yes, yes, yes! It's high time we had a Scottish fh magazine and not have to make do with the occasional passing reference in one of the others when they remember.

Years ago one of them had a questionnaire re which articles to retain and which to discard. At that time they had a modest column on news from Scotland, alternating each month with news from Ireland. When the result of this questionnaire was published, needless to say that column was chopped, one reader evidently having said (and I'm quoting from memory here, but the sentiments are the same) 'Why Scotland and Ireland? Why not 'News from Cornwall', News from Manchester' etc?' to which the editorial answer was 'Yes, indeed', totally overlooking the fact that Cornwall and Manchester are regions of England and we're not. It made me froth with fury at the time, and it still rankles to the extent I never buy that one now. Don't buy any in fact but cheat and read the one you write for Chris, in the local library.

[Chris Paton]

It is interesting that Scotland is light years ahead of England and Ireland with regards to the availability of information on the internet, and yet there is no mag to tap into and reflect the interest that that has generated. GROS and NAS are so successfully operated that thay are now merging to form a new one stop shop for family history. Radio Scotland put on a series recently that was so popular that it was almost instantly recommissioned, and then cloned by Radio 4!

The broadcast media in Scotland have been ever so cool about touching genealogy, I can tell you! I worked at the BBC in Glasgow from 2000 to 2006 and was constantly suggesting they pitch ideas on genealogy, but they wouldn't go near it. It took London to commission WDYTYA for Glasgow to eventually respond with a radio series several years later in the same territory, and it was an instant success. I get the feeling the same attitude exists in print - "oh no, it can't be done"! Yet when it's done down south it is a rip roaring success! Even the newspapers up here have genealogy specials from time to time, which are always popular, but no-one seems to have any belief that a Scots geanealogy mag can be sustained, despite the fact that other history based magazines such as History Scotland and the Scots magazine quite happily turn up on a regular monthly basis on our news-stands!

I think Calvin did a good job on Scotland when he placed "Thou Shalt Not" into the national psyche...! lol

Chris

[DavidWW]

Bucket of cold water time, I'm afraid

I've been into this in depth with one of the UK magazines, and discussed it with others.

The basic problem is that the circulation in the UK only would be most unlikely to be sufficient to provide a reasonable profit for the publisher; at a price that would not be too far from the existing UK mags.

Yes, of course, if the worldwide potential could be exploited, then it's virtually certain that a circulation of 30,000+ could be achieved, that being around the minimum figure for such a venture to be financially viable and stable.

But the problem is then also the substantial marketing costs of accessing all those markets, - i.e. USA, Canada, Oz, and New Zealand; never mind that N America is already partially at least catered for via periodicals such as The Highlander, and a few others. which have regular Scottish genealogy/family history articles.

Australian interests are already reasonably well provided for by the magazines of the state and local FHSs; ditto in NZ via the journal of the NZ Society of Genealogists.

A further aspect is that many folk in Australasia already subscribe to one or more UK mags, and many would want to continue to do so, given ancestors from all over the British Isles, so that that proportion of the market would need to be persuaded to pay out another, say, Oz100 or NZ$ 120 for another annual magazine subscription might not be that great.

Given that the existing 5 UK genmags have lots of generic articles, e.g. occupational, research techniques, etc., that also apply to Scotland, the question arises of whether there would be sufficient content left to support even a bimonthly or quarterly periodical aimed purely at the Scottish scene, without the need to compete on that generic content with the other genmags.............

David

[Chris Paton]

And yet History Scotland regularly finds its way onto the shelves, and it is quite an elite history mag compared to the more populist BBC History mag that competes alongside it.

I guess my point is that there is a hole out there in the print media for those who don't actually know they are interested in genealogy yet, as well as those who do. It's what YFT successfully targetted down south, and what Digging Up Your Roots sucessfully targetted up here on the radio, and what WDYTYA successfully targetted on the Beeb.

As I said, I'm not plannning on visiting the Dragon's Den, I guess I'll just have to keep reminding our southern neighbours of us lot up here in the north! lol One point I would say though David, is that a lot of the mags down south are forever guilty of running an article on say agricultural labourers and then providing links to resources just in England. Or forever proclaiming that statutory registration began in 1837, when up here it didn't, etc. In those situations, they are actually fairly unhelpful as you tend to wonder a) was the situation the same up here? and b) where do I go to follow up if it was?

Chris