I hope that
you manage to find the details that you are looking for amongst the hundreds
of pages available to you in this site. The site is totally free to use and in
return I hope that you can contribute some data that may be of use to other
genealogists searching for their roots in Ayrshire.
If
you are looking for information past and present on Ayrshire Towns then you
will find historical details, maps, and many views old and new for Ayrshire
towns or parishes by clicking on Towns. Our ancestors in Ayrshire
lived and worked in the various towns and parishes throughout the County.
Researching our roots is not complete without seeing where they lived and
the history of the area. Under Towns it is hoped to have old and new views
of all the Ayrshire towns together with details of their past industries and
history. Links will take you to any local websites where they exist.
If
you are looking for details on how to search for your Ayrshire Ancestors or
what resources are available to you then click on Genealogy. This
site has been constructed to help those searching for their Ayrshire
Scottish roots. There is help for those starting out in Genealogy (and even
the more experienced) with details on how to go about it and where to look
for the information which will help you construct your Family Tree. Links to
all the relevant archives and libraries, A great historical section to help
understand the environment our ancestors had.
If
you are looking for details on specific Surnames you will find descendant
trees, IGI, OPR, Census details on an ever growing list of names by clicking
on Surnames.
You will
also have search links to search the site for that surname, and links to
subscribe to that surnames Rootsweb Mailing List and Message Board.
As research
in particular family names proceeds it is useful to make contact with others
researching the same family name. Already many have made contact with
'family members' through the Surnames listing of Descendant Trees etc.
Please e-mail your Ayrshire connections for uploading to the site. A
database of over 60,000 Ayrshire related people has already been built up.
The search facility allows you to do a quick search of
this site for the
name, place, or date you might be looking for, using several search
engines. There is also an inbuilt
search link on each Town and Surname page. There is now a vast
amount of information on the site and it is being added almost daily.
The search tools are now the most valuable part of the site. There are
three search tools and it is worth using all three as they are indexed
at different times and work over slightly different content.
As new material is added to the site an ongoing dated list of these will be
maintained in
the what's new section. This will help you find anything that has been added
since your last visit to the site.
Forums
There are two Forums in the
site for you to use to contact others about all your genealogy interests
You will not lose your existing
credits when your 7-day session is expired; when you buy more credits they
will simply be added to your existing credits.
Containing over 43 million records, the ScotlandsPeople database
is one of the world’s largest resources of genealogical
information and one of the largest single information resources on
the Web. They provide a fully searchable index of Scottish births
from 1553-1905, marriages from 1553 to 1930 and deaths from 1855
to 1955. In addition, indexed census data is available from
1841 to 1901. To respect privacy of living people, internet
access has been limited to birth records over 100 years old,
marriage records over 75 years, and death records over 50 years.
From the results of an index search made on the site you may view,
save and print images of many of the original documents, and order
extracts of any register entries of interest. Such requests are
forwarded automatically to New Register House, and the requested
extracts are mailed to you (airmail in the case of overseas
orders).
International
Genealogical Index IGI)
The
1881 British Census,
1880 United States Census and the 1881 Canadian
Census ,searchable databases of
more than 85 million people, are now on the Internet. Note the
search will not find anyone who is resident in SCOTLAND at the
census, as this is excluded - instead use the 1881 Census CD-Rom or
Scotlandspeople website above.
FamilySearch.org's International
Genealogical Index (IGI) is now better than ever. The new, updated version
of this online database has more names and displays the information source
for an individual's records. Also, as new information is gathered, it will
be added to the online index, (but no updates are planned for IGI on
compact disc). A small number of individuals are now linked into families
and can be viewed on pedigree charts. Family group records and pedigree
charts are downloadable, and the number of individuals linked into
families is expected to increase over time. Check out the IGI at:
Best view in Internet Explorer 4.0 or
above at 800x600 resolution. If you find that some grey boxes appear
where there should be images or navigation buttons this may be due to
you not having JAVA installed on your computer. Due to a dispute with
Sun Microsystems Microsoft have had to drop the inclusion of JAVA in the
latest Windows XP. If you wish to install JAVA and be able to view this
website and many others correctly then use this
link.
Note: - Ayrshire is also a city in
Palo Alto County, Iowa, USA - population 202 in 2000 census
and .co.uk