I am publishing these as internet allows so sorry for the delay.
Invergordon, Scotland was the port of call today for the 5th Unlock the Past cruise. The weather was absolutely beautiful with bright blue skies.
There were a number of possible shore excursions including one to Loch Ness although seeing this sign at an Invergordon Tourist shop I was quite happy with my planned excursion to the Highland Archives in Inverness.
In my personal research I don’t have much in the way of Scottish research, my grandfather died there after a training accident in World War Two. I also have my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Hester Carter who died in Edinburgh in 1924.
I only found her dying there as a result of my One Name study on Quested. I had done an extraction of Questeds from the Scottish indexes that i found her listed under her maiden name of Quested! I later found out that after her husband died she went up to Scotland to be near her son and also daughter who both ended up there. If Elizabeth had not been listed under her maiden name I probably would not have ever found her as I had no reason to look in Scotland and Carter is not the most uncommon name in the world!
Invergordon is a pretty town and they have done a lot to enhance its character with these bright paintings around the town.
Marie Dougan and Paul Blake were also among the group that decided to go to the highland Archives in Inverness and after initially deciding to go by train we ended up in a taxi and off we went!
After a scenic ride we got to the Archives after passing the best known second hand book shop in Scotland. Yes, I actually PASSED the bookshop and although had hoped to get there later ran out of time.
Inside the Archives, Chris Halliday kindly welcomed the group and the research began. My plan was to look at Scotlands People for the certificates I could not access online and I had a wonderful day extracting the data for 140 of the 148 certificates I had listed. So for 15 pounds for the day fee and 29 pounds photocopying and 20 pounds for the transport I received 140 certificates for my One Name Study! Fantastic value!
We stayed researching until closing time and then back to the ship satisfied for the day and ready to hear the next lectures.
The below shows the printed certificates (the policy here is to not allow you to use a USB to download digital copies so printing was the way to go) and I also had many for which I needed to do transcriptions.
