Family history - you never know what it will reveal next!

A minor flurry of excitement this week amongst those researching Scottish family history online. The indexes and scanned images from the 1861 census in Scotland went live on Scotland's People, the official source of online genealogical data for Scotland. We all immediately rushed off to the website to see what new twigs of information we could add to our various family trees.

So far, in my own family research, we've found a few fascinating snippets, such as discovering that one related family, in 1861, had two lodgers living with them - boys of 12 and 14 who were born in Africa. There's a story lurking there I'm sure. I may even have a go at tracking it down one day, simply out of curiosity.

And then, trying to trace a particularly elusive ancestor, I found one of her sons - banged up in prison! There he is, listed on census day 1861 as a prisoner inmate of Castlefield County Prison in Cupar, Fife. Oh, the ignominy of it! :)