Sarah Smith

Kinross Scotland Have you heard about Kinross in Scotland? And its links with gold, Mary Queen of Scots and Robert Burns? Perhaps your ancestor lived in Kinross and you always wanted to know more about it. It is a place of historical importance with fascinating stories from the settlement of medieval Monks to the imprisonment

What are the Scottish Kirk Session Minutes? The Scottish kirk session records include minutes of the parish’s daily affairs.  The word kirk means church in Scottish and the established church was the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. As part of their duties to look after their parishioners, they were also responsible for recording baptisms, marriages and

Use your Ancestry to ‘exit brexit’. There has been a sharp increase in British people applying for an Irish passport through ancestry since the EU referendum. Brexit has compounded the demand since British people are worried about the impact of travelling. This increase is being driven by Britons of Irish ancestry who want visa free

What is a Sasine Register? The Sasine Register is generally known in Scotland as the Register of Sasines.  These Scottish registers are normally located in Edinburgh. A Sasine is pronounced ‘say-zeen’. It comes from an old French word, ‘seizer’ which means to ‘seize or take’ land. Sasines are all about Scottish property ownership.  They were

Dollar family and town: For the family historians, you may belong to the Dollar family or perhaps your ancestors came from the town of Dollar.  So here is something for you to read about Dollar. While driving and listening to the depressing news about Covid, my attention was diverted to the word Dollar. This is