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Famous Scots celebrating Homecoming
25/01/2009
An exhibition featuring Billy Connolly's family history is the first in a series of six exhibitions, on the theme of ancestry, launched in Edinburgh as part of the Homecoming Scotland 2009 celebrations.
The rolling exhibition explores the personal family history of six well-known Scots, changing every eight weeks and running through to Hogmanay 2009.
Minister for Europe, External Affairs and Culture Linda Fabiani visited the ScotlandsPeople Centre at New Register House to view the exhibition which will opens to the public today.
Ms Fabiani said:
"This exhibition promises to be very popular, taking a very different approach to how we view some of the most well-known Scots. Visitors will find it both fascinating, inspiring and great value, as entry is free of charge! I am delighted that the excellent facilities of the ScotlandsPeople Centre are now fully open for Homecoming, so that residents and 'Homecomers' alike can use and enjoy our world-leading family history service to explore their own ancestry."
Marie Christie, Project Director Homecoming Scotland 2009, said:
"Homecoming Scotland is delighted to be working in partnership with the ScotlandsPeople Centre to stage the 'Famous Scots' exhibition in 2009. Ancestry is a key theme for Homecoming Scotland and visitors to the exhibition can see not only Billy Connolly's family history but undertake their own genealogical research."
The first exhibition traces Billy Connolly's Glasgow roots back to his ancestors from Ireland and the Isle of Mull. They came in search of work in the industries that made Glasgow the second city of the Empire. Connolly's early years in the shipyards was part of a family tradition. The living conditions of his ancestors are also explored in the exhibition, which is based on original documents, some of which are displayed for the first time.
During Homecoming, experts in the ScotlandsPeople Centre will be delving into the ancestry of five other celebrities, and the rolling exhibition will show visitors how easy it is to trace their own Scottish family history.
The exhibition is being staged in the new ScotlandsPeople Centre, Edinburgh, surrounded by over half a million hand-written registers recording the lives of Scots going back more than 400 years.
The ScotlandsPeople Centre opened fully to the public January 12, 2009 and is ready to receive Homecoming visitors and residents alike. It boasts the most complete publicly-searchable family history database in the British Isles, giving instant access to digital images of over half a million statutory registers of births, deaths and marriages, old parish registers and censuses volumes, in addition to half a million wills of Scots, and the Register of Arms.
For people not able to visit the Centre, the key genealogical resources of ScotlandsPeople are available online.
'Famous Scots' is supported by Homecoming Scotland as a key part of the ancestry theme of the Homecoming year.
The six exhibitions will reveal aspects of each Famous Scot's ancestors' occupations, where they lived, and how their lives were shaped by the society to which they belonged.
Names of the other celebrities participating will be released during the year.
The ScotlandsPeople Centre is a new family history centre for visitors to get easy access to key resources for Scottish genealogy. It features the most complete publicly-searchable family history database in the British Isles, and gives instant access to the statutory registers of births, deaths and marriages (from 1855), the old parish registers (1553-1854), the censuses (1841-1901), wills and inventories (1513-1901) and the Register of Arms (1672-1908).
All these records have been digitised and are available on computer terminals throughout the Centre, and anywhere in the world via www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
ScotlandsPeople is a partnership between the General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.