SIB FOLK NEWS - Orkney Family History Society

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NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Issue No. 47 September 2008
Scottish Association of Family History Societies
19 th Annual Conference
Saturday 26 th April 2008 in Motherwell Concert Hall.
This year’s SAFHS Conference was hosted by Lanarkshire
Family History Society in association with Glasgow
and West of Scotland Family History Society.
On the Friday night, 25 th April, North Lanarkshire
Council kindly put on a Civic Reception and Dinner which
was hosted by Provost Tom Curley. It was in the Civic
Centre, Motherwell. As I was the only OFHS member to
enrol for the Conference I was invited to represent Orkney
Family History Society. When Mr Bob Stewart, chairman
of the Lanarkshire Family History Society, replied to the
welcome and presentation by Provost Tom Curley I got a
special welcome as the furthest travelled guest. A lovely
meal was served by College students after which an enjoyable
time was spent talking to old friends and meeting new
ones. The company began to break up at 9.30pm.
Then at 9.30am, the next morning, we congregated in
the spacious Concert Hall for the History Fair and in the
Civic Theatre for the lectures. After registration each
delegate received a Visit Scotland carrier bag full of genealogical
goodies. Coffee and biscuits were also readily
available. On entering the hall we found that many of
Scotland’s family history societies and some other history
groups were already fully prepared for visitors to
their stalls. There were twenty one family history societies
represented. The most northerly was Highland FHS.
Because of the size of the hall many other historical and
heritage groups had been encouraged to attend. Again
there were about twenty one of them. I bought a couple
of books and I confess to have spent some time at an “Old
Nan Scott reports
Postcard” stall that had a big bundle of Orkney postcards
for sale. If anyone is interested I can pass on an address.
The Conference was opened by Gilbert Cox, Lord Lieutenant
of Lanarkshire. He had been at the Civic Reception
the night before and had expressed an interest in family
history researches. The first speaker was Dr Irene O’Brien
whose subject was “Scottish Poor Law”. She is well known
all over the Scottish Archive scene and is a Senior Archivist
in Glasgow City Archives. She told us how the Poor
Law Act came into being in1845 and continued until 1948.
She went on to tell us of the records that had to be kept to
comply with the law such as names, ages, birthplaces, dependants,
marital histories, other relations and addresses.
She also told us where they could be found. It was very interesting
how several of the examples that she chose to use
came from Orkney. Later I discovered that she knew our
Alison Fraser and that the Orkney Archive had been very
helpful with her research. In conclusion she said the Poor
Law had given us a very important source of information.
It recorded the lives of a particular level of population and
drew attention to the huge numbers of applications.
The second lecturer was Guthrie Hutton who worked
with BBC Scotland for 32 years. He left in 1994 and has
since written a number of local history books. Many of
these have been about mining or canals. The subject of his
talk was “Forth and Clyde Canals”. I found his talk very
interesting and before I knew it I had filled four pages in
my notebook. I had recently read a book on life on a barge
and have had two holidays on the Caledonian Canal whenA
The Civic Reception Dinner was hosted by Provost Tom Curley of North Lanarkshire. On his left is Bob Stewart, Chairman of the Lanarkshire Family History Society and on
his right is the Glasgow & West of Scotland FHS Chairman, Eddie Nairn and the Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire Mr Gilbert Cox MBE. JP. who opened the conference..