Conference

Annual General Meeting 2024

The Forty-Seventh Annual General Meeting of the Scottish Records Association will take place online via Zoom on Tuesday 17 December 2024 at 12.30pm. At the meeting, the winner of the Tunnock Prize for 2024 will be announced, and it is expected that they will then give a short presentation based on their research.

The agenda and papers have been circulated to members. Any members wishing to attend the online meeting are requested to contact the Secretary (anne.m.cameron@strath.ac.uk) before Sunday 15 December to receive the Zoom joining instructions.

Conference autumn 2024

Estate, Household and Family Collections and their Use in Research

The autumn 2024 conference, held in conjunction with the Scottish Association of Country House Archivists, was on estate, household and family papers in private and public ownership and their use in historical and other types of research. It took place over two days: the first, on 23 October, at the Sir Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen (and online) dealt specifically with estate papers. The second, on 15 November, at the Soutar Theatre, AK Bell Library in Perth (and online) looked at wider country house collections, including correspondence, household papers and libraries.

Estate, Household and Family Collections and their Use in Research: Part 1

Wednesday 23 October 2024
Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen

Programme

Dr Alan MacDonald, Senior Lecturer, University of Dundee
Loss and Survival: what estate records tell us about estate records

Dr Alan Borthwick, Archive Depositor Liaison Branch, National Records of Scotland (NRS)
The NRS Experience of Collecting and Managing Estate Papers Over the Past Century

Irene Hallyburton, doctoral researcher, University of Dundee
Secession and Improvement: the rental book of Culfargie

John Moore, retired academic librarian
A View of the Landscape: a research project to produce a coherent list and record of the pre-Ordnance Survey Scottish estate plans

Scott Macfie, doctoral researcher, University of Glasgow
Agricultural Improvement on the Isle of Bute (1755-1814)

Bob Reid, volunteer researcher at the Argyll Papers
The Marriage Customs of Seventeenth-century Scotland that Controlled the Property Rights of the Bride's and Groom's Families

Craig Thomas, Assistant Archivist, Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust
Buccleuch: Industrial opportunism or future-proofing?

Dr Alan Borthwick, Archive Depositor Liaison Branch, National Records of Scotland (NRS)
The NRS Experience of Collecting and Managing Estate Papers Over the Past Century

Dr Fiona Salvesen Murrell, Curator, Paxton House
Paxton House and Caribbean Connections 1750-1850

Estate, Household and Family Collections and their Use in Research: Part 2

Friday 15 November 2024
Soutar Theatre, AK Bell Library, Perth

Programme

Professor Annie Tindley, Head of School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Newcastle
Working with and for community benefit in estate archives

Kelsey Jackson Williams, Associate Professor in English Studies, University of Stirling
Scottish Country House Libraries: Undiscovered Treasures

Daryl Green, Head of Heritage Collections and Co-Director of the Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh
Rewriting Scottish Book History in the Country House Library

Ingrid Thomson, retired academic librarian
Women of Glamis: Privilege and Privation

Rachel Beattie, Curator, land and sport, National Library of Scotland
Women and sport in the estate papers at the National Library of Scotland

Ellen Engseth, Curator of Immigration History Research Center Archives and Head of Migration and Social Services Collections, University of Minnesota
Archival theory and other visitors to a country house

Tessa Spencer, Head of Outreach and Learning, National Records of Scotland
The Balfour legacy: exploring the papers of the Balfour of Whittingehame family, Earls of Balfour

Margaret Fox, Archivist, Traquair House
William MacIver: estate factor, curator and linchpin of the family

Annual General Meeting 2023

The Forty-Sixth Annual General Meeting of the Scottish Records Association took place online via Zoom on Thursday 14 December at 12.30pm.

Conference autumn 2023

The Body as Evidence

The autumn 2023 conference took place at the Soutar Theatre, A K Bell Library, Perth, on Thursday 23 November 2023. It covered issues and themes about the human body in archives. Topics included death, post-mortems, forensic science, and reconstruction of traumatic events that caused injury and death.

Programme

Dee Hoole - All that Remains: The Aberdeen Anatomy Records, c.1820-1920

Cheryl McGeachan - Police Surgeons and Body Geographies

Ashleigh Black - The Physiognomy of the Fallen Woman: Tattoos as Expressions of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Female Convicts

Rosemary Elliott - 'In Sickness and in Health': Frail and Failing Bodies in McIver v McIver (1857-59)

Ivan Sanchez Hervas - Medical Testimony and The Spectrum of Sex in the National Records of Scotland

Natasha Preger - The Post Office Needs You: Medical Examination in the Victorian and Edwardian Recruitment Process

Jenny Duffy - Band of Brothers: A Tale of Three Thieves and their Journey to the Gallows

Malcolm Bangor-Jones - Attitudes towards the Burial of Suicides in the Northern Highlands during the 19th century

Conference spring 2023

On the Write Track: making sense of older handwriting

The spring 2023 conference of the Scottish Records Association took place on Friday 24 February and was held in conjunction with National Records of Scotland.

The venue was New Register House in Edinburgh. At the morning session a series of talks discussed advances in online palaeography tuition and how Artificial Intelligence can help transcribe manuscripts.

During the afternoon there was an open event where researchers could bring documents they were having problems reading or understanding, to get advice from experienced palaeographers from academic institutions and archives. Also present were societies who publish original sources of Scottish history, showing how their publications can help researchers understand similar records, and how to access other useful sources. There was also a small display of original records from the National Records of Scotland's archives related to the societies' publications.

The conference marked the launch of the new edition of 'Scottish Handwriting 1500-1700: a self-help pack', published jointly by the Scottish Records Association and National Records of Scotland.

Annual Conference 2022

Spoken Record: communities and their sound archives

The 2022 annual conference of the Scottish Records Association took place on 18 May 2022 online and at the Soutar Theatre, AK Bell Library, Perth. It explored how personal testimony and sound archives are used by research projects to record the experiences of people who are connected by similarities in their working lives, geographical location, or other 'communities of interest'. Recordings from such projects have special significance for these communities, but also extend beyond them and can be re-used in different ways. Presentations were made by historians and others who use recordings in their research, and by archivists, curators and other staff who make sound archives available to researchers.

Programme

Terry Brotherstone (University of Aberdeen) and Dr Hugo Manson (independent scholar)
The Making of an Oral Archive: how the Aberdeen University / British Library Lives in the [UK North Sea] Oil Industry Collection was created

Dr Valentina Bold (Crichton Trust)
'Up the Middle Road': Crichton stories of resilience and recovery

Professor Margaret Bennett (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)
Perthshire Shuttle-makers and the Ordie Shuttle Mill, Luncarty

Dr Saqib Razzaq (Colourful Heritage Project)
'The Colourful Heritage Project: preserving the history of Scotland's South Asians and Muslims

Audrey Wilson and Taylor Webb (Scottish Council on Archives)
Voices - Our Stories Matter: bridging the gap between archives and community heritage

Victoria Peters (University of Strathclyde)
The Scottish Oral History Centre Archive at the University of Strathclyde

Louise Scollay (University of Edinburgh)
The School of Scottish Studies Archives: access and re-use

Caroline Milligan and Lesley Bryson (European Ethnological Research Centre)
An Exploration of the Methodology and Practice of the Regional Ethnology of Scotland Project (RESP)