Family History Tours

What should you do if you get a request? Before planning and pricing your tour you need some basic information from the client and then you need to plan accordingly

What information do they have?

• At a minimum they need to have a name, date of birth, marriage or death, place
• Is the place accurate? If you are not clear where it is – maybe it is spelt wrong – it may have been handed down the generations and lost in translation
• Is the registration or parish location actually where they lived, District Maps 
• Get a detailed map of the area and look at it carefully: Ordinance Survey Maps have names of farms, hamlets etc. Look at historical maps online NI Historial Maps
• Do they have any idea of the occupation of their ancestors? This can help with making the tour more interesting e.g. I had a visitor who was a stone mason and lived in the Craigleith area of Edinburgh – therefore he was likely to have helped quarry the stone for Edinburgh’s World Heritage New Town

How accurate is that information?

• If they think they are descended from Robert the Bruce or Finn McCoul – they are probably wrong!
• Where did they get it from? If it is from an internet source – have a look at it yourself – some of it is extremely inaccurate especially family trees that people have posted on line. 
• Do they know the difference between so-called Scotch Irish and Roman Catholic Irish immigrants? Both moved backwards and forwards between Ireland and Scotland and both emigrated
• Did their ancestors go directly from Ireland or did they leave from England or Scotland? Find My Past has an Irish Roots collection and Passenger Lists
• Do they really know the location they are wanting to visit or are they just telling you the family is called “Best from County Armagh”?
• You can save a lot of time by asking them to send you everything they already have in advance – even a couple of days allows you to prepare.
• Are you sure they have the right location – think about your own knowledge of the area or site – is it feasible or has it been embroidered in the telling?

What exactly do they want to achieve?

• Do they want to find an exact cottage or dwelling place?
• Do they want to find a grave?
• Would they be happy just to be in the correct village?
• Will you need to get permission to enter a site e.g. a ruin may only be accessible with permission – can you get that in advance?

Can you help them find more information?

• Point them to records: before they come and for after they go home
• They may have a subscription already to Ancestory or Find My Past
•  Family Search is free to look at – it is also a good place for you to look without spending any money.  But be aware, people put up their own family trees and they often have mistakes
• Other places to look:

Useful Links

• Find My Past- Family Records

• Find My Past- Irish Census

• NI Direct- Family & Local History

• Northern Ireland Genealogy

• Find A Grave

Think about timings

• This will take longer than you think
• You may have to drive to difficult locations and have trouble finding them
• They will get excited if you find the right places and want to spend time there
• It can take a long time to search a graveyard
• One thing can lead to another – you arrive at one farm and they tell you that the family also lived a few miles away – your clients will want to go there too

Think about your costs

• Cost in your time in preparation – this is not an ordinary tour that you can do off the top of your head. No matter how well you know the area you are visiting – this is going to be a different perspective.  You may have to do a reccie to find particular farms or cottages or graveyards.  You must include this in your quote
• Charge a realistic fee for the tour – it will probably take longer than you think – if you are driving remember the mileage may be considerable by the time you wander the highways and byways.
• Do you need to buy detailed OS maps or can you get them online?
• Are you going to provide them with maps and other handouts?

It can be useful to make detailed notes in advance and draw up a rough family tree and locations from the information they have given you.

When you are out and about be prepared to be:

• Flexible – the chances are that you will find more places than you thought and you may have to change your mind as you go
• Understanding – they can get very emotional if this is something they have wanted to do for a long time and it can be disappointing if they don’t find what they want
• Realistic – the graves may well not be marked so it is often enough to be able to confirm that if they died there they will be buried there somewhere. They will have attended this church and gone to this school  or the one that was there before (you will of course know when it was built!)
• Adventurous – be prepared to drive into farms and speak to locals – they are usually very helpful once they know what you are doing
• Respectful – you may have to go onto private land – make sure you have permission to do so and that you take care and ensure they do too.
• Honest – if you can’t find the right place or connection – don’t make it up to keep them happy.

A  True Story from Scotland

I received a request with one week’s notice to take two ladies called McConachie to Glenlivet and to find their castle.  The first thing I did was check if there were any McConachie Castles in  Scotland – there aren’t!  I couldn’t get much information in advance but I did some general research on the McConachie family in the Glenlivet area.  There are thousands of them.  I purchased a very detailed OS map of the area. I discovered that there is a ruined castle close to Glenlivet Distillery although it belonged to a different family. They had some names of villages which on reference to the OS map I was able to decipher and get sorted out – they were spelt wrong in the information they had sent me the Gaelic spellings had been anglicised in some cases.

I contacted a chauffeur company I use and gave them an outline and got their costs too.  I then quoted to the ladies taking it all into account.

In the car the ladies told me that they had some connection to Glenlivet Distillery – fortunately I had brought information about the distillery with me – and I got out my leaflet and turned to look at them – one of them was the double of the founder of the distillery! 

So first we went to the castle I had found – one of the cottages on their list was very close by – it had belonged to their 2x great grandmother and their great grandfather had been brought up there. It didn’t take much imagination to decide that the wee boy had played in “his castle” as it was already a ruin by that time.   We were lucky that there was someone working on the castle and he pointed us to the original site of the first Glenlivet Distillery – we went there up a single-track road and across a field and right beside it was a cottage which had belonged to another of their relatives. 

We then made our way to another village from their list – someone was working in a garden so I asked her if she knew anything.  She said her father would know and went and got him.  He sent us to a farm up the road.  We drove into the yard. An old man on a tractor approached us and asked what we wanted.  I explained and he was happy to let us wander around.  Then he came back and said “What was the name again”  “McConachie” I said  “Aye, I remember my mither talking aboot them – they went to America”.  Tears all round and very happy ladies!

It can be a lot of work but family history tours are extremely rewarding.  In my experience the people have spent years planning this or wishing they could come.  Your knowledge of the area and social history combined with their research will make a very special visit for both you and your clients.   They will remember you forever and you won’t forget them either. 

We know that now visitors are looking for personal immersive experiences and this is one of the best you can do.