Genealogical Society of Queensland - GSQ

Principles of Effective Evidence Analysis presented by George G Morgan for Legacy Family Tree Free to view up to 28 August 2026. Follow the link to access: https://tinyurl.com/wjs2t2kt

Ever find three different birthplaces for the same ancestor across three different census years? 🤯 Don't panic—learn how to evaluate primary vs. secondary information and resolve conflicting evidence with George G. Morgan in "Principles of Effective Evidence Analysis." Free through August 28th!

Another successful Open Day. Thanks to everyone who came and joined in. Thanks to Genealogical Society of Queensland - GSQ

Genealogical Society of Queensland - GSQ Open Day TODAY, Saturday 22 August 2026. Hope to see you there and take the opportunity to talk to all our dedicated GSQ Members who will be waiting to help you to discover your Family Story.

New digitized Irish convict records. Thanks to Trove

If your family tree reaches back to Ireland and our convict past, explore newly digitised Irish convict records in Trove.

The lists of Irish free settlers are a glimpse into the lives of people seeking free passage to Australia to reunite with transported relatives: https://brnw.ch/21x4XAB

Compiled from the prisoner appeals papers held in the State Paper Office Dublin, more of these records will be coming to Trove soon.

We are grateful for the support of Christopher Edye in making this collection available online.

[Image description: A segment of an 1865 watercolour painting showing convict prison ships (‘hulks’) at a beach landing painted by Julia Lloyd]

A reminder to book for the Closing Ceremony on Monday 31 August at 5pm, AEST. Thanks to AFFHO Family History Month.

Have you registered for the Closing Ceremony yet? Hear Fiona Brooker talk about "Finding Women in Your Family History" and be in the running to win prizes from our sponsors. Learn more and register at https://www.affho.org/family-history-month/

The Glasgow Tramway&Omnibus Co. From Glasgow City Archives

Castles of Edinburgh on Our Town Stories. Enjoy the journey with Edinburgh City Archives

Understanding Scottish geography and boundaries. Thanks to Scottish Indexes

Understanding Scottish geography and boundaries.



There are many ways in which understanding the geography of the area where your ancestors lived will help you trace your family tree. Historic maps on the website of the National Library of Scotland (NLS) is a great place to start. It’s a free website and it’s really easy to use. You may even be able to find a map showing the street or the farm where your ancestors used to live. What we may see, for example, is that although living in one parish they were much closer to a church in another parish. This may explain why children were baptised in a neighbouring parish church.

It can be useful to familiarise yourself with parish and county boundaries. Again, boundary maps on the NLS website can help with this.

When the census was taken the area was split into enumeration districts and a description of each small district is given at the start of the volume. You can see these on ScotlandPeople when you click ‘View Header’. This blue button can be found above the image of the census page. This will give a written description of the area covered in the book helping you to work out where your ancestors lived.

As towns and cities expanded boundaries were changed and this can be quite confusing. Here is a fun example of bizarre boundaries.

The town of Galashiels was split between two parishes, the parish of Galashiels and the parish of Melrose. The parish of Galashiels has always been in Selkirkshire. Melrose however was in Roxburghshire, so you could live in the town of Galashiels but be in the county of Roxburghshire.

From the point of view of census and civil registration, it stayed this way until 1856. At this time a new registration district called Ladhope was formed out of part of Melrose Parish. This registration district included the Roxburghshire part of Galashiels town and had already existed as an ecclesiastical division of Melrose parish. This new Ladhope registration district stayed in Roxburghshire until the next change at the beginning of 1873.

In 1873 the entire registration district of Ladhope was moved into Selkirkshire and now the town of Galashiels was all in the same county but still split between two registration districts - Galashiels and Ladhope.

In 1892 Ladhope registration district was split, the large rural part was renamed Langshaw and returned to Roxburghshire. The other part which contained half of the town of Galashiels was merged with Galashiels registration district and remained in Selkirkshire.

This means that if you cannot find your ancestors in Galashiels in 1841 or 1851 it would be well worth checking the Melrose parish census returns for those years.

This is perhaps a slightly extreme example but it shows why having an understanding of boundaries is important.
This is a topic that Robert Urquhart will be covering in more detail at the Scottish Indexes Conference in September. Robert’s presentation has the title, ‘Parochial Matters: parishes, districts and counties’. In this talk Robert will look at some of the issues affecting records such as statutory registers of births, marriages and deaths; Old Parish Registers; census returns; kirk session minutes; poor relief registers; and valuation rolls. Robert will explain why sometimes the parish name, as stated in a record or index, might be misleading or vague. The talk will show how boundary changes and the mismatch of county and parish boundaries can catch out unwary researchers and be the cause of failed searches for people, places or buildings in records. Robert will also share some practical tips when searching online.