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Family history fairs, 26-28 February 2010
Head of the ScotlandsPeople Centre, Dee Williams, at our information stand

ScotlandsPeople Centre will be represented at the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' event at Olympia Hall, London. Staff will be on hand to provide free access to the ScotlandsPeople website.

Letter to customers, 22 January 2010

Various customers have written to the Registrar General regarding plans to remove access to microfilm/fiche at the Centre. A copy of the response is available by clicking here: Letter to customers, January 22 2010.

National Identity Register

Family historians have been given access for the first time to information from the National Identity Register drawn up at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

Enhancements to seat booking system

Our new seat booking system is now in place, which can locate a customer in any seat in the Reid Room or Matheson Dome. We will also have six seats in the Dundas room for anyone wanting to use the DIGROS system. The seat numbers generally available will be seats D1, D2, D13, D18, D27 and D28. Once these seats are filled, no further seats will be released unless the day search places are full. See the search room plans for details of seat locations.

The system has also been enhanced such that a change of colour occurs when a name search is carried out, however, if a new search is started the system will clear itself and only the names for the new search will change colour. ScotlandsPeople Centre, Saturday opening, 24 October 2009

On Saturday 24 October 2009 we are opening our doors (9:00 to 16:00) for free introductory one-hour taster sessions in the Adam Dome, General Register House for new visitors to the ScotlandsPeople Centre. The Famous Scots exhibition in New Register House will also be open and it will be possible to visit our shop for gift ideas, books and other mementos. Please note, the other search rooms and café facility will be closed.

We are making taster sessions available to people who are new to family history research. The one-hour session will be an ideal opportunity for you to become familiar with our digitised records and see how easy it is to start tracing your family tree. Please note, only one taster session per person will be permitted. The sessions will be held at the following times:- 09:30, 11:00, 12:30 and 14:00. We expect them to be very busy and on this occasion places can be booked in advance. To reserve a seat, please telephone 0131 314 4300 weekdays between 09:00 and 16:30. You can also book a place by sending an email to bookings@scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk.

General Register House is at the east end of Princes Street, opposite the Balmoral Hotel. The entrance to the Centre is behind the statue of the Duke of Wellington.

The Famous Scots exhibition will be open between 09:00 and 16:00. This is a free exhibition in New Register House. Our latest celebrity is the Oscar-winning actress, Tilda Swinton.

Catholic Parish Registers added to the ScotlandsPeople website

Om Tuesday 6 October 2009, the First Minister and Cardinal O'Brien visited the ScotlandsPeople Centre to mark the fact that the Catholic birth/baptism registers were being put on the ScotlandsPeople website. 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 registers are obviously very important to family historians with Catholic ancestors, and they are an important addition to the website (adding 2 million names to he 65 million already on the site).

These records are not available at the ScotlandsPeople Family History Centre.

ScotlandsPeople Centre in the News

Read all about the ScotlandsPeople Centre in the following recent articles in the Edinburgh Evening News.

Unlocking the secrets of the rich and poor

Family tragedy secret stuns TV presenter Gail Porter

Edinburgh boxer Alex Arthur discovers some 'dodgy' characters in 220 years of his family's history

Launch of Scottish Old Parish Register Deaths and Burials online, 1 April 2009

The Old Parish Register deaths and burials are being launched at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk on Wednesday 1st April.

— Why are these records not available at the ScotlandsPeople Centre at the same time?

Users of the ScotlandsPeople Centre system will be aware that there have been problems with the system sometimes slowing down or even freezing due to overload issues. At the moment the system is cleared and re-booted each night to clear the memory but this is not a long term solution because some of the problems still persist.

To sort our overload problem, our specialist computer staff need to alter the search facility and make it more efficient. This work should be complete by the Summer 2009.

Whilst our IT staff are resolving these problems, there are no resources available to add these records to the system.

One of the outcomes of the proposed system changes will that it will be possible to search for a marriage prior to 1929 using both the bride and groom's name, which will be an improvement.

Access to the microfilm for the Old Parish Register deaths and burials will continue to be made available to day search customers.

— When will these records be available at the ScotlandsPeople Centre?

At this stage we can only say that we expect that the records should be available at the ScotlandsPeople Centre by December 2009.