Hints and Tips for Researching at the Search Room
'Be prepared' is the motto for a visit to the Search Room!
It is advisable, especially if you are travelling any distance, to book about a week in advance. Basic tools to bring are pencils (no pens, markers or highlighters please as original documents are handled), an eraser, and plenty of paper. A laptop computer may be used, provided it can be operated with batteries.
To prepare for a first visit to the Search Room, begin with your birth certificate, which will show the names of your parents and possibly provide the date and place of their marriage. The marriage certificate will give their ages, names of your grandparents, to help trace their birth certificates and so on. Beforehand, ask around your family and try to obtain copies of relevant birth, death and marriage certificates. Make up blank templates of birth, death and marriage certificates or list the column headings from the certificates. Take copies of these 'pro-formas' for use in the Search Room, then it will be a case of quickly 'filling in the blanks'. This preparation should ensure you can record information as accurately and as quickly as possible, to make best use of your time.
Prepare a 'master list' of all the entries you hope to find, with relevant notes as to the possible places of births, deaths and marriages, with a range of years for deaths, including information from the Census'. For example, a note that your great-grandmother was, 'still alive when daughter married in 1861, and a widow, aged 67 in the 1881 Census at Aberdour', could greatly facilitate your search. If your list is a long one, highlight the important searches and tackle those first. However, if an entry proves difficult to find, don't be tempted to waste a lot of time searching, leave it and deal with the easier ones. Delete entries from the list as you find them to make maximum use of time in the Search Room. A list is also advised in preparation for a fifteen-minute search of the computer index DIGROS.
Transcribing everything from each entry is advised even though it is time-consuming. You may think that all you need for your chart is a date and the names of parents, however, even a very minor detail could be of major significance further down the line. For example make notes of:
variations in ages and spelling;
different addresses;
the name and relationship to deceased of an informant of a death;
name and address of a witness to a marriage;
whether the parents of a bride and groom were alive or deceased.
Adopt a system for noting sources, by recording a 'reference' for each entry. For example;
| Entry | Source Found/Recorded | Source Reference |
| Birth, Death, Marriage | B | |
| District Name/No. | St. Machar | |
| Year | 1884 | |
| Entry No. | 233 | |
| B/St. Machar/1884/233 |
A source reference shows where the information was found and is useful for future checks.
It is possible to purchase extracts of entries for £8.50 during a General Search. It is also possible to search for births, deaths and marriages on the internet at the General Register Office for Scotland website.
For a full guide to the services, view or download the Family History Leaflet.
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We would welcome any comments or suggestions on the information on this web page and following your visit to the Search Room.
Contact:
Search Supervisor
Search Room
Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages,
Aberdeen City Council,
St Nicholas House,
Upperkirkgate
Aberdeen AB10 1BA
Tel: (01224) 522616
Fax: (01224) 523340
E-mail: SearchRoom@aberdeencity.gov.uk
