The June 2015 issue of The Scottish Genealogist was delivered to my desk recently and I came across a couple of articles that may be of interest to some of you.

The first is about the Edinburgh Sweating Club; I kid you not.  First appearing in 1750, this was apparently a band of young rogues who would go out drinking in the local hostelries and at midnight would sally forth and terrorise the local populace by snatching wigs off passers-by, chasing and jostling others. It is an interesting and amusing article.

A couple of pages further on in the same issue is a list of the members of the New Associate Congregation, Edinburgh (1785).  Have a look as you may find your ancestor listed; it gives names and place of residence.

Ever wondered where your ancestor went to school?  Another article in the same magazine is titled Scottish Charity Schools in the early 18th century.  This is a list of the charity schools run by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SPCK) dated May 1724.  It gives the date of opening, place, parish, name of School-master, number of pupils divided into boys and girls.

The July/August 2015 issue of Your Genealogy Today has an article about records of those who worked on the Panama Canal titled – Finding Grandad at the Canal!  If you have lost one of your male ancestors then perhaps this may be something to consider.  The article mentions a several records that are of help with such a search.

Marie Hickey

We've recently purchased a series of educational resources for children, called Branching Out.

They are US produced lessons plans by Jennifer Holik, broken into books with ages groups:
Branching out : genealogy for 1st-3rd grade students;  Branching out : genealogy for 4th-8th grade students ; and Branching out : genealogy for high school students.

Each age group contains 30 lesson plans; and works through the mechanics of step-by-step how to research your family history in an age appropriate way.

This is an exciting new addition to the Central Auckland Research Centre.

We often get children and teens on school visits come into the Research Centre. Family history is often introduced to children via the school curriculum in Year 4 and then later around Year 10; although some schools also do it in other years.


 Getting children interested in family history has fantastic results in terms of teaching them the concept of "history" and also teaching them how to research. It allows them to identify with history in a highly personal way, through their own families.

They learn valuable information seeking skills, how to use different resources, and how to cite their sources.

When they come into our Research Centre, they don't just learn to use our online databases and subscription websites. They learn about microfiche and microfilm; heritage newspapers; and using books and CD-Roms.

We have many other resources to help as well.

We try to teach them to think laterally.

Some of these schools treat family history as a year long project, with a fantastic scrapbook at the end of it.

My plan is to take these resources and adapt them for New Zealand.

I'd love to work more collaboratively with schools, raising awareness of how much we can help them.

And I am also considering developing a school holiday programme.

I think using Family History is a great way to teaching kids how to research and how to use their Library.

If you think your school would be interested, let them know and tell them to give me a call! The best way for us to help classes, if they ring and arrange a suitable time to come in.

Meanwhile, have a look at the photos on our Facebook page. Our wonderful displays team has created a display for Family History Month (August) called Family History for Teens and Children.

Seonaid