Routes to your Roots

Historic maps provide a fascinating insight into where and how our ancestors lived.

In a special project for Homecoming Scotland 2009 we teamed up with the National Library of Scotland (NLS) map library to help people with Scottish ancestry find out more about where they hail from.

Images

Shown below are map details and other images of some of the properties included in our Following in the Family Footsteps trails. They come from many periods of Scottish history, with some taking us right back to the 1580s.

In each case if you click on the image you will be taken to the NLS website where you can see the map in greater detail. The NLS has a huge online collection of maps of Scotland, so if you know the farms, village, town (or perhaps castle) your family came from you can find out what it was like in centuries gone by. Suggestions on the best way to do this are provided below.

Views from the past

Shown below are a selection of images created between the late sixteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries.

They include two sketches from manuscript maps by Timothy Pont who surveyed the country in the 1580s-90s, which he hoped to have engraved and published. Unfortunately most of Pont’s work was only published – after some had been revised and updated – in an atlas published by the Dutchman Joan Blaeu in 1654.

The Pont manuscript maps and the Blaeu atlas show tens of thousands of communities, from cities to the tiny fermtouns where most of the population lived, in every part of Scotland. Just as remarkable is John Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiae a pictorial survey which was first published in 1693.

Maps are not just about places – they are also about events, opinions and attitudes. Many early maps had illustrations in the corners provide a fascinating insight into the times. A fine example included below is from a plan showing the Battle of Culloden at which Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated by government forces. The Jacobite sympathies of the mapmaker are clear not just from the broken-horned uniform illustrated but other depictions such as a broken Scottish thistle.

Where do you come from?

If you are interested in using maps to find out more about your family’s Scottish roots then the NLS maps website is a great place to start. It has high resolution zoomable images of more than 6,000 maps. Many of these maps include detail of Historic Scotland properties.

• County Map List
• Town Plans
• Military Maps

There are also specific websites dedicated to the work of some of the figures whose maps and engravings are shown above. These include:

• Slezer’s Scotland website
• Pont maps website
• Blaeu Atlas of Scotland website

Further Information

For more information about the map library contact:

Map Library
National Library of Scotland
33 Salisbury Place
Edinburgh EH9 1SL
Scotland, UK
Tel: +44 (0)131 623 3970 (direct dial)