Tutorial - Scots & Irish in London After 1815: The collections of the Caledonian Asylum and others with Lorna Kinnaird

Lorna will talk about the Scottish collections she found whilst visiting the LMA (London Metropolitan Archives) several years ago.  The Highland Society of London launched an appeal in 1808 to raise funds for an asylum to house and educate the hundreds of Scottish children who were roaming the streets of London, many having been orphaned or left fatherless following the Napoleonic wars.  This asylum was for the relief of the children of soldiers, sailors and mariners, natives of Scotland who had died or been disabled in the service of their country – all of those children were not entitled to parochial relief because they didn’t hold a residence permit.  The unique information recorded name of child, age of the child, date of birth, place of birth, name and age of parents including the maiden surname of the mother; status; occupation of father, name of his regiment and status in the militia/army; date and place of parents’ marriage and their dates and places of births, religion of the parents, full family circumstances; reason for petition and background of family tragedy; witnesses; petitioners signatures; date admitted to the asylum; original certificates of BMDs or BBB; personal letters; sibling details and vaccination dates – and whether the child was free from infection!  Lorna will demonstrate that this underused resource can find families who left Scotland at the turn of the 19th century and who likely never returned to their homes.  Another important collection that can help uncover hundreds of Scots who otherwise never appear in many records from birth to grave and whose details could never be found any other way.  She will also include Removal Orders that directly relate to those sent back to Ireland before the 1841 census.    

Lorna is a graduate of the Institute, who gained her Higher Certificate in 2013 and her Postgraduate Diploma in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies with the University of Strathclyde in Sept 2015. She is also a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (FSA Scot) and a member of the Association of Scottish Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (ASGRA).

Lorna spent over 30 years researching her own family lines which cover all the British Isles, the US/Canada, China, Russia, Australia and New Zealand. Formerly a Regional Representative of the Guild of One Name Studies for the whole of Scotland, she enjoys a quieter life working on her One Place Study (Aberlady); her Apprenticeship Indentures; Jacobite Records; and the Caledonian Asylum Petition Databases and her being chairman of the Lothians Family History Society as well as running her own Scottish research business from Edinburgh. 

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