ScotlandsPeople: the place to launch your Scottish research
ScotlandsPeople provides an exceptional source of genealogical records for those with Scottish ancestry – Statutory registers of birth, death, marriage, divorce, civil partnerships and dissolutions; church registers for the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church and other Presbyterian churches; census records; valuation rolls; and legal records covering wills and testaments, soldiers’ and airmen’s wills, military service tribunal appeals, and Coats of Arms. Access to such a wide range of basic records for a relatively cheap fee means we can all research from our home without the expense of hiring a search agent or a trip to Scotland – as pleasant as that last option may be.
With some knowledge and practice you will become adept at locating records of relevance to your family and you will be well on your way with your research. Of course, not all records are available online. You will still need to track down your non-conformists, investigate land records, maps, cemeteries, electoral rolls, directories, poor law, military and other records, but ScotlandsPeople is a great place to launch the study of your families.
Available from Gould Genealogy
Treasures in Australian Government Gazettes
It is true that birth, death and marriage records, wills, cemetery records, newspapers and a range of other resources are likely to tempt family historians with the wealth of details they can provide about our families.
However, how often do we think of turning to the gazettes produced by the government – the education, police and government gazettes – to extend what we know about them? The likely response to any suggestion that it is worth investing time and effort into these records is that they are boring and only cover people who worked for hte government so why bother.
But as the author illustrates with many examples in this book, that idea is far from the truth. Many ordinary people are mentioned, often with details that you will find nowhere else. Digitisation of many years of Australian government, police and educations gazettes now means that such a search is no longer a tedious matter, bu can return many treasures in just a matter of minutes.
We dismiss the gazettes as being irrelevant at our own peril. They cover the whole population – not just government employees, criminals and teachers. They are bound to include someone in your family!
Available from Gould Genealogy
MyHeritage … My story
MyHeritage has much to offer family historians – a safe place to store your family tree and interact with others interested in the same family, an expanding collection of historical records from many countries and a developing DNA service which can open new opportunities for research.
Its innovative technologies offer great ways to search the family trees and records and provide many avenues to link up with other cousins. Who else can offer so many language options, global translations or quality printed trees? Find your cousins and discover great records for your family at MyHeritage.
Available from Gould Genealogy
Getting started with Family Historian 6 
Family Historian 6 is a comprehensive, award winning genealogy software program. In their July 2016 edition, “Who Do You Think You Are?” magazine says ‘it remains our favourite program for Windows users.
It is designed and written by Calico Pie, a UK software house based in London, founded by Simon Orde in 1995. It has features ideally suited to those researching in the UK.
A fully functioning download of the latest version is available for a 30 day free trial, and it comes with a sample project for users to investigate its various features.
This guide introduces new users to the main features of the program and shows them how to get started recording and charting their family history – names, dates, places, images and all the other details they have gathered.
Available from Gould Genealogy
Handy Guide. ScotlandsPeople: A treasure trove for family historians 
The ScotlandsPeople website hosts approximately 30 million images and 110 million index entries, and is the go-to site for Scottish research.
It provides access to records from the statutory registers, church registers, census returns, valuation rolls, wills and testaments, soldiers’ and airmen’s wills, military service appeals tribunal and Coats of Arms.
This Handy Guide gives you a quick rundown on what you can find on ScotlandsPeople, together with tips on how to search this website effectively. You’ll also find links to various associated websites, together with suggestions for further reading.
Available from Gould Genealogy
Handy Guide. German words for family historians
Researching a German ancestor will undoubtedly lead you at some point to needing to read German records.
Having access to a list of German words that may be found in documents will help your to identify and understand the records.
This Handy Guide lists several hundred German words together with their English translation. Divided into categories of Relationships, Occupations, Religious and Church terms, Jurisdictions or political terms, Months and days, and Assorted words.
Also included are references (and samples) of the “old style” German writing, and you’ll also find links to various websites and suggestions for further reading.
Available from Gould Genealogy
Handy Guide. German maps and gazetteers for family historians
Maps and gazetteers are essential for family historians. Knowing where our German families came from and locating that place in a gazetteer and on a map, is extremely important as we search for records that reference them.
Importantly it will place them in the community, show the names of surrounding villages, and provide information on the local terrain.
In Germany we must know the place to progress our research as records are held locally rather than centrally, as they are in many other countries.
This handy guide gives readers plenty of links to maps and gazetteers that can be found online, as well as information on how to use them. A must for everyone researching their German roots.
Available from Gould Genealogy
Handy Guide. MyHeritage: Discover, share and preserve your family history
MyHeritage is one of the leading destinations for families to discover, share and preserve their family history and DNA.
This guide provides an overview of all the main features on MyHeritage so that you can make the most of all it has to offer.
Covering everything from putting your tree online, matches to people in your tree or searches that you’ve done, DNA and DNA matches, records and data searching, the MyHeritage app, details of the various subscriptions available and more.
Available from Gould Genealogy