ScotlandsPeople Centre

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Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Birth of a golfing great

Happy birthday to Allan Robertson, one of the world's earliest professional golfers, born on 15 September 1815 in St Andrews.

Although the sport was the sole preserve of well-off gentlemen in the early part of the 19th century, Robertson was one of a small band of professionals who made a living caddying, clubmaking or instructing. His merchandise was exported all over the world (an original Robertson ball carrying the Allan stamp is highly-prized by today's collectors).

Further information on Robertson is available on the Centre website - see our Famous Scots - Sporting Greats page. As well as a synopsis of his career, the index entries to his actual registration records are listed. If you're visiting the Centre to do some historical research and your surname happens to be Robertson you could discover that golfing finesse runs in your family!

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Papal visit to Edinburgh

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who opened the ScotlandsPeople Centre on 4 July 2008, will welcome Pope Benedict XVI to Holyrood Palace on Thursday 16 September. On the occasion of the first official papal visit to the UK it might be opportune to remind family historians about the Catholic archives available for research. Since October 2009 Catholic registers have been made accessible on our 'pay-per-view' site, ScotlandsPeople.

Before the introduction of civil registration in 1855, the Church of Scotland ministers in each parish were meant to register everybody who was born, married and died in the parish. But these parish registers generally did not include Catholics, who kept their own registers. These Catholic registers are obviously very important to family historians with Catholic ancestors and they were an important addition to our digitised database (adding 2 million names to the 65 million already on the site).