Genealogy

I've loved the search for genealogy and my family's history since my children were young. I wanted to understand my roots, and why some of the difficulties my family endured happened, and how those events changed all those who were touched by them. I found young orphans, babies born before marriage, rape, and tragic death by fire among the more normal events. I've also found some family lines that are rather well-researched, which took away the challenge. For some years other projects took my time. Then, the yDNA tests became affordable, and I bought an Family Tree DNA kit for my dad for Father's Day. Because those "beginner kits" don't tell you much, and have far too many meaningless matches, I kept paying for upgrades, all the way up to 67 markers. This took his high-quality matches down to under 10, but as we followed up on these matches, we realized that this line of Cowans came from Stirling, in Scotland. The recorded part of the family went to t...

Maps of the Counties of Scotland, 1580-1928 : http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/map/early/counties.html . All their Maps of Scotland : http://www.nls.uk/maps/ Gateway to Scotland , Geography Department, University of Edinburgh: http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/scotland.html Not quite a map, although there is a clickable map, and not quite a gazeteer either. The Statistical Accounts of Scotland, 1791-1835 are searchable by placename for free: http://edina.ac.uk/stat-acc-scot/ . Ignore logging in and go to the bottom option, Browse Scanned Pages. If you want to use the clickable map, you will have to create an account (free) and login. Britrail British Travel Shop , New York City, phone 1-800-677-8585 Your Maps Online : http://www.yourmapsonline.org.uk    150 English maps (12 Scots) and etchings available for download; also maps scanned onto CDs for sale Old Ordnance Survey Maps : http://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/ Old Maps - 19th century Ordnance Survey maps . Search b...