Scottish Catholic records

If you are interested in researching your Catholic ancestors in Scotland then Andrew R. Nicoll’s book “Scottish Catholic Family History: a family historian’s guide to Catholic parish registers and cemetery records for Scotland and the Bishopric of the Forces” (2011) provides a good starting point. It provides details of what records are available, where they […]

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Dr Graham’s Kalimpong Homes

Scottish missionary papers in the library’s archive and manuscript collections are replete with stories of individual Scots who sought to fulfil their vocation overseas. Figures requiring little introduction are well represented in the papers, such as in the journals of David Livingstone or letters of Mary Slessor, along with more surprising gems, including the last […]

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More Gaelic Books Digitised

We have reached the first milestone in digitising all our out-of-copyright books in Gaelic: the first 50 are now freely accessible and can be read in full on our website about Early Gaelic Book Collections! The digitised books were published between 1631 and 1900 and cover mostly literary and religious subjects from poetry and songs to translations […]

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A Beautiful Binding

The Library has the largest collection of bindings by the brothers James and William Scott, renowned Scottish bookbinders who were active in the second half of the 18th century. We are always looking to add to our collections of bindings, and here’s one we bought recently. This particular volume is bound in a red morocco […]

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A Previously Loved Book

Here’s a book we bought not so much because of what’s in it, but because of who owned it. It’s an English translation of a theological treatise by a French noblewoman, Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc, Duchesse de la Valliere (1644-1710), called The penitent lady (NLS shelfmark  AB.1.211.014).  The book itself does not look terribly exciting – but […]

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Written by a Scottish Jesuit

We recently bought a book that’s now 525 years old! It was written by the Scottish Jesuit John Hay (1547-1607), and its English title is “Certaine demandes concerning the Christian religion”. The book consists of 166 questions on points of religious controversy. It is still in its original binding: Hay moved from Scotland to Rome in […]

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