Old Letters in Libraries

HelenEMound · Post by **HelenEMound** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 11:06 am

I found a wealth of wonderful information in letters in the National Library of Scotland. These included Milsom family papers which had dockets from my great grandfather born in 1690s and the dockets were dated up to 1769 and counter-signed by his various sons. He signed his name with one spelling and all the sons with the spelling which became common for later generations: Aitchison.

Another set of letters were the Rennie papers which allowed me to identify the link between John Rennie engineer and my 4 x great grandmother who was his older sister. In the other documents about Rennie it states "Marian : nothing more known" so was able to confirm that she was the lady who married James Mylne of Lockhill the poet whose works were published postumously by Robert Burns.

The letters to John Rennie included letters from my 2 x great grandfather and most of his brothers and their father. they showed how they were quite happy to go on their European tours in the middle of the Napoleonic wars and detailed some exciting adventures. One even includes details of his fighting with the French as he was part of the British Army.

The papers from family estates contain lots of information about staff too so if you have access to a National Library just go and do a quick check on their document archives' indexes and see if your family names come up. It could be a valuable source for you too.

MaryB · Post by **MaryB** » Sat Apr 16, 2005 10:42 am

I keep saying I hae to go to the National Library of Scotland one of these days. They have family papers for my Mackintosh family