One of the wonders our “Emma Explores” programs is how Emma’s articulation of her research journeys can be so inspiring to our own.

In today’s program, Emma described the writers, journalists, and a diplomat in her family and how she could explore her ancestors’ lives through their work as accessible from the modern web. Here are the slides she shared

The fabulous tips Emma suggested in her presentation quickly fueled the discussion at the end. Among them were:

* Carefully explore the objects, trunks, and other physical materials you’ve inherited to identify related search topics.

* Don’t discount Wikipedia.org you can author your a page or edit those others have written.

* British Newspaper Archive

* eBay: Search by title, topic, author — even address. You never know what you’ll find. (See Emma’s recent Podcast on postcards.

* Abebooks.com or abebooks.co.uk, a reseller of out-of-print, rare books, fine art, and collectibles.

* Other online booksellers

* History of Parliament online: historyofparliamentonline.org — where Emma found a profile for her ancestor who had briefly been a member of parliament. Do the same for any government member in your country.

* Google searches (use “” around groups of words, “-” or “+” for exclusions or inclusions, for example.) And while searching, look for…

1) Occupations – where they worked

2) Publications – add photos if possible

3) Find old covers of magazines/newspapers

4) Covers of books found online (plus extracts of you want)

* Google alerts for search terms you are always on the hunt for.

Emma graciously offered tips and help on searches in Britain, primarily England. Our delightful discussion extended past the recording.

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As a professional genealogist, Emma explores archives, churchyards, and online to compile histories, charts, tours, and books for clients. When collecting material for clients or engaging experts in discussions on her podcast, Journeys into Genealogy, and substack of the same name.

Today’s exploration focused on patterns in a family tree, whether from location, industry, physical characteristics, or illnesses. Today’s pattern focuses on places. Emma introduces us to Scots terminology and some remarkable resources available to anyone on the web.

The discussion that followed Emma’s talk today included an outpouring of shared references and experiences. Among the links are:

Exploring Montrose, Scotland

* National Library of Scotland Maps Section: maps.nls.uk

* Demo of NLS maps website showing side by side view 1897 and today

* National Records of Scotland: nrscotland.gov.uk

* Catalogues & Indexes

* GENUKI: A virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland

* genuki.org.uk/big/sct/sct_cmap

* Scotlands people: scotlandspeople.gov.uk

* Kirk Session records: Kirk sessions are local church courts held by the Church of Scotland since 1560

* Scottish Archive Network: catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk

* Scan Catalog Overview showing Montrose: Search for records where any field contains any of the words montrose

Exploring Kildrummy, Scotland

* Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland Genealogy on Family Search

* BHO — British History Online

* Topographical dictionary of the Kildrummy area on British-History.ac.uk

Research Tools & Websites

* NLS Roy transcription project to learn more about Scottish geography maps.nls.uk/roy

* Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society (ANESFHS)

* ANESFHS.org.uk (Very helpful people)

* A Pharos course by Chris Paton on researching Scottish ancestors (lots of

sources mentioned) pharostutors.com/scottish-research-online

* British Newspaper Archive britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

Additional resources from the discussion that followed:

It was a delight to see so many Projectkin members and contributors in our discussion today.

Previous contributions from participating Projectkin members:

* Karen Ray

* Anna Scheutz

* Jude Rhodes

* Kathy Stone: Kathy is responsible for our ongoing series, Kathy’s Corner. Join us next week on August 22nd for our next episode. Register here. Here’s the most recent episode from last month:

Finally, don’t miss next week’s Open House as the inaugural Roundtable discussion for the new Mission: Genealogy. This is the new genealogy community just starting here on Substack. Learn more about the program:

And I hope you can join us next week. (Of course, it’s free.)

Thank you so much for being a part of the Projectkin Community Forum.

If Projectkin is new to you, please join us. You’ll receive all programs and resources free of charge in your inbox.

Feel free to keep the conversation going by adding comments below and sharing your stories in Notes.

As a professional genealogist, Emma explores archives, churchyards, and online to compile histories, charts, tours, and books for clients. When collecting material for clients or engaging experts in discussions on her podcast, Journeys into Genealogy, and substack of the same name.

As we explore family history, we generally expect to research our ancestors based on their names and what we’ve learned about the dates and locations of important moments in their lives. Sometimes, however, it’s not so straightforward.

An Ongoing Mystery and a Brick Wall

As Emma describes in this episode, one of her ancestors changed her given name, family, and married names several times during her lifetime. Emma shared her own journey as she followed Caroline Rumpf through her baptism, marriages, and homes as captured in census and church records.

You can explore and download her slides here:

Emma’s discussion of Caroline’s changing name triggered an interesting discussion of how immigration records and other clerical errors also changed names in former British colonies in the Americas and Australia. It also revealed how records might be hiding behind institutional name changes. In the discussion that followed, Emma mentioned the British Newspaper Archive, Australian Trove, and her recent interview for her podcast with Ruth Graham of the Society of Australian Genealogists:

The lessons and tools Emma shared with us can be applied to your family research, too. Learn more about Emma at:

* EmmaCox.co.uk

* JourneysIntoGenealogy.co.uk

* JourneysIntoGenealogy.substack.com

Our next program in the series will be on August 15; you can register for that event or any in the series here:

Emma Explores, like all programs from Projectkin are accessible to all members and the family history community for free. To learn more about coming events, please visit:

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As a professional genealogist, Emma explores archives, churchyards, and online to compile histories, charts, tours, and books for clients. When collecting material for clients or engaging experts in discussions on her podcast, Journeys into Genealogy, and substack of the same name.

In this wonderful series, Emma takes us behind the scenes as she shares the joy of discoveries and in her family history from her home in Kent, England. Today’s episode focused on “gateway” ancestors Emma discovered in her own line and how they opened up connections to royal ancestors.

The lessons and tools she’s shared with us can be applied to your family research, too. More about Emma at:

* EmmaCox.co.uk

* JourneysIntoGenealogy.co.uk

* JourneysIntoGenealogy.substack.com

Emma has also generously shared her slides with us:

Our next program in the series will be on July 18; you can register for that event or any in the series here:

Emma included an extensive list of tools she used in her research. Among them:

* FamilySearch.org (free)

* Relatives at RootsTech (only available during RootsTech.)

* RelativeFinder.org (login with a free FamilySearch login)

* ThePeerage.com (free)

* Internet Archive (Archive.org, free, books and web property archives)

* BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk (fee, and through FindMyPast)

* Newspapers.com — (Fee-based, though now part of Ancestry.com but often available through public libraries for free.)

* Trove.nla.gov.au (free)

* Google Alerts (free)

* HathiTrust.org (free, high-resolution book scans)

The slides aren’t immediately available but will be added as a PDF to this post by 5 PM Pacific time on June 21st.

You’re very welcome to share this recording with others if you think they might be interested.

I was delighted to see Jude Rhodes of Stories of Our Generations in the audience today. Like Emma, she’s a professional genealogist as well, working in Yorkshire England. Jude will be our guest in a special Project Recipe event in August. Learn more and register here.

This recording is automatically sent to all Projectkin members for free as part of our Substack newsletter. It is one of the programs we offer each month. To learn more, visit Projectkin.org or

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