A Day at the Microfilm Reader

I was delighted earlier this year when I  found an online index listing the daily contents of the Haddingtonshire Courier (now the East Lothian Courier) from October 1859 up to December 1902. The newspaper collection on microfilm  is housed in the Local History area of the John Gray Centre in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland.

Now it just so happens that Mr GeniAus has Gowans and Sibbald ancestors who were in the Haddington area during that period so I checked the index and found more than 30 reference to family members. I saved these on a spreadsheet. As we were planning a trip to the UK I added Haddington to our itinerary. Once I had a date I emailed the John Gray Centre and booked a microfilm reader for the day.

I was most impressed when Mr GeniAus dropped me off at the Centre and went to find a parking spot. When we visited a number of years ago the local studies collection was stored in an inadequate area in a loft. The new  John Gray Centre houses the local library and archives in a lovely light filled environment.

When I marched up to the reception I was given a right, royal welcome. Bill Wilson, Local History Officer,  and his staff settled me at a microfilm reader and organised  retrieval of the films I needed. Robert joined me and we bunkered down for a morning of research.

GeniAus at work

Local studies collection

 While I played with the microfilms and downloaded the newspaper articles onto a thumb drive  Mr GeniAus browsed the book collection looking for references to his ancestors.  Bill offered us a behind the scenes tour of the archives but I declined as I wanted to complete my task. Mr GeniAus accepted Bill's offer and found the tour very interesting.

Behind the scenes in the John Gray Centre 

An innovative display highlighting local identities

 When I announced on Facebook that I was headed to Edinburgh and Haddington my fellow geneablogger, John Laws, who lives in the neighbourhood suggested we meet up. Knowing that we would need a lunch break we made a date to meet John at a local cafe, The Loft. 

It was lovely to meet John in the flesh, through blogging and genealogy we had been online friends for several years.  John is kept busy with a surname study for the Laws (and variants) name. He blogs about it here at The Laws Family Register.

Meeting up with genimate, John Laws

 After our break we returned to the John Gray Centre so I could complete my task. My head was swimming after spending several hours at the microfilm reader so I was pleased to set off towards our next stop at Galashiels.

I was not so pleased when, that evening, I discovered that I had left my thumb drive containing all my saved images in the microfilm reader. Mr GeniAus displayed great restraint the next morning when we had to trace our steps to  collect my thumb drive.

I cannot thank enough Bill Wilson and the staff at John Gray Centre  who made us so welcome. I owe a debt of gratitude to the team of volunteers who have created such a valuable resource in the newspaper index.

Found while planning the next adventure...

Our next holiday will be to the UK. Although our main focus is touristing, as we will be in ancestral territory, we will have to spend some time ancestor hunting.

Gowans Headstone

On a previous visit to Scotland in 2004 (was it that long ago?) we visited Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. The local history and genealogy collection was housed in a cramped little gallery area upstairs in a library. The staff were amazing and so helpful and gave us some very useful leads. We were so impressed that Mr GeniAus wrote to the local authority to compliment the staff and comment on the poor conditions in which they were working and the records were housed. 

While in Haddington we were able to add several leaves to the Gowans tree when we found several family members resting in St Mary's Church Graveyard. 

Today I was doing some planning for our next jaunt which includes a few days in Scotland after an organised tour from London to Scotland. I'll visit General Register House in Edinburgh, The Heritage Hub in Hawick and return to Haddington. 

I discovered that Haddington now has The John Gray Centre "The John Gray Centre brings together East Lothian Council’s Archaeology, Museum, Archive and Local History Services, alongside Haddington’s branch library." Wow! Did they listen to Mr GeniAus?

What was even better was that I was able to consult their online catalogue where I found numerous references to Mr GeniAus Gowans ancestors. The industrious folk at East Lothian have indexed newspapers and local archives and records. We'll be having a busy and fruitful day in Haddington when we visit the John Gray Centre to access all those references I found today.

Tombstone Tuesday

On a genealogy trip to Scotland we went to Haddington in search of my husband's Gowans ancestors. Although we scoured the graveyard at St. Mary's Kirk we were unable to find any trace of them. Whilst in the graveyard we were approached by a Scottish gentleman who was transcribing the site. He gave us his telephone number and said that he would check his records at home for transcriptions.

When we telephoned him the next day he gave us the location of a family grave that we were so close to on the previous day. We returned to the cemetery to find a headstone not just with details of my husband's ancestors' burial but with details of a number of other family members.

It is pleasing to see that the volunteer gentleman's transcriptions are now available on the Church website.

9th July 2004

This post is prepared for Genea Bloggers Weekly Genealogy Prompt Week #5: Talk about your genealogy adventures while on vacation. Doesn’t everyone plan a little genealogy visit during vacation? Take your readers along for the ride.

From my diary on 9th July 2004: "Big find of the afternoon was the death of Robert's 5xgrandmother Janet Sibbald."


We had paid a visit to East Lothian Local History Centre in the town of Haddington, Scotland "where the staff, who work in the most incredibly basic conditions, were hugely helpful." It was here that we found an obituary for the death of Janet Gowans nee Sibbald who died on 24 February 1814. We were thrilled to find that she was interred in a local church, St. Mary's, Haddington so we set off in search of the grave. The staff at the Local History Centre were very professional in their approach and tuned in to our needs; they went out of their way to make our visit the success that it was.


"We cannot find the Gowans grave, but meet a helpful old Scot, Ewan, who is indexing the historic cemetery. He gives us his 'phone number and promises to look in his records at home to see if he has any info for us." After returning from dinner to our hotel in Edinburgh that evening we gave Ewan a call. "We are given the news that we were very close to Janet's grave this afternoon and that there are five other persons in the grave including Robert's 5xgrandfather John Gowans." The next morning we returned to St. Mary's and took a number of photos of the grave and graveyard.


Ewan's act of kindness created one of the highlight's of our family history trip to Scotland. It is pleasing to see that the results of Ewan's work are published on the church website.


The information on the Gowans headstone gave us many leads for further research. We now need another trip to Scotland to follow them up!