NRH Visit .....

[mallog]

As some of you may know from other posts I visited NRH yesterday and had a great day. I hope you are not all glazing over by now. It is some time since I was there and it was great to have so much digitised but I am not very keen on their search facility I prefer SP's. I noticed several times if I put a name etc in of a record I knew to be there it came up with nothing but if I missed out the first name or just put an initial the record came up ?? I also got a lot I couldn't read very well and was too mean to get them all photocopied plus the fact when I got home I discovered my transcriptions leave a lot to be desired so I have gained some sympathy for the registrars who had to write the records in such small spaces. It was absolutely brilliant to be able to take your laptop.

One of the women I was looking up had 2 children out of wedlock, married the father had another child then 5 months later husband died. She then had another 2 children 3 and 5 years later. They were given her maiden name and the name of her late husband and another surname which I presume was the name of each of their fathers. Their birth records also stated that she was the widow of so-and-so and the date he died. Poor woman

[laineywoo]

Hi Mallog
We were there at the same time at reg house! Guess this just goes to prove what you folks were saying is true, we should all wear something so we can have a chat whilst there!
Lucky you with a lap top....I think I need to beg my husband for one for Christmas...my hand was sooooo sore with all that writing I knew if I were to print the certs I would have spent a fortune
The people there are v helpful and the chap at the main reception is lovely, what a gent!
I do agree about the search facility.....If you dont have all the info you have to trawl through alot of years with their system.
Lainey

[Liz Turner]

I've not been at NRH for many years but it sounds like it might be worth another trip. I might just wait until the summer is over though ...

It's nice how on this site folk tell you what they're up to and it would be even nicer if we had some way to recognise each other when we pass like ships in the night

It's a good idea to have some sort of recognition badge or pin for TS folks. Should we start a fresh post for suggestions? Something simple that we could all pick up, a badge in a particular colour perhaps with TS and/or our posting names on it?

Liz

[elisabeth]

I am hoping to visit NRH for the first time soon and found this thread-can someone tell me how the search facility differs from Scotlandspeople? I have a lot of queries needing wildcards and "all Robertson deaths in Logie before 1865" type searches-are these possible or is it a case of having to have some idea of the year you're looking for? Can you search for a surname in a specific village?
Thanks,
Elisabeth

[DavidWW]

I am hoping to visit NRH for the first time soon and found this thread-can someone tell me how the search facility differs from Scotlandspeople? I have a lot of queries needing wildcards and "all Robertson deaths in Logie before 1865" type searches-are these possible or is it a case of having to have some idea of the year you're looking for? Can you search for a surname in a specific village?
Thanks,
Elisabeth

The biggest and most important differences are that you can only search in one year at a time, not a range of years; plus no wildcards are allowed.........

When the new combined GROS/NAS/LL centre is up and running things might get better, with wildcards at least.

David

PS And no restriction of the search area is possible, - it's all Scotland or nothing!
dww

[AndrewP]

Hi Elisabeth,

Be careful when searching for Logie, thatyou are looking at the right Logie. See below a quote from a previous reply I gave regarding Logie.

I think the Logie that you are after was the parish that was split across boundaries into three counties until 1891. For OPR and registration purposes, it is regarded as having been in Perthshire, although was previously split between Perthshire, Clackmannashire and Stirlingshire.

The Logies (separate places) in Scotland that were parishes or registration districts are as follows.

Logie Buchan, Aberdeenshire
Logie Coldstone, Aberdeenshire
Logie Pert, Angus (Forfarshire)
Logie, Fife
Logie, Perthshire / Clackmannanshire / Stirlingshire - Perthshire for NRH and SP purposes
Logierait, Perthshire
Urquhart & Logie Wester, Ross & Cromarty (and an exclave of Nairnshire)
Logie Easter, Ross & Cromarty

All the best,

AndrewP

[Muriel]

Like others I don't have a laptop but I've drawn up some forms 1 each for B, M & D & another for census info. I photocopy them & take a pile with me to NRH. It's not perfect but if you fill in the boxes you don't get home & discover that you've got the district & number but not the year or something similar.

Muriel

[elisabeth]

Thanks David and Andrew. That's a big disappointment about the one year at a time-I will need to rearrange my queries and start with the ones where I know the year(not many of them!). Looking for a David Chalmers/Chambers/Chammers(15 variations of spelling) and a James Robertson death anywhere in Scotland between 1819 and 1919 will be an impossibility, I assume, if I want to get anything else done. Thanks also for the reminder about Logie.
Elisabeth

[JustJean]

I used the same method when making my first NRH visit recently. Carried with me a pile of blank BMD "forms" (copied front and back so as to minimize space in my luggage). They were a real benefit to getting the info transcribed rapidly and not skipping anything critical. Now that I'm home I just have to try and make sense of them by posting them into my Legacy software.....which task has somehow taken a backseat to all the other catching up I'm doing

A laptop would have been ideal but it looks like the hassles of carrying one through airports these days is becoming a nuisance say nothing about the size of the carryon bag you're allowed so that you'd be able to bring little else on the plane with you

Best wishes
Jean

[Ted]

Hi Jean

Just to show off a bit - I use a PDA when I am out and about searching - I have 'pocket genealogist' software on it - this lets me enter data straight in to the software and when I get home I can sync it with my main PC and the info automatically drops straight into my Roots Magic programme. The PDA has software to let me handwrite other relevant notes and can take voice records - all much smaller than the average paperback novel - so taking it on a plane with you on your travels is no problem.

Best regards

Ted