Greetings from Scotland

I m delighted to join Julie's concept of WorldwideGenealogy and look forward to contributing and  exchanging views with  fellow bloggers. 

To give a brief introduction  to my own particular family history interests:

• .I am Susan Donaldson, aka ScotSue.  I  was born in England but have been in Scotland for over 50 years.  I now live in the Scottish Borders, a rural area in the south east corner of Scotland, covering  the old county names of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire.  I am a member of my local history group - Auld Earlston,
  
  
• My background is history and librarianship. Over the years, my career has spanned a year'  in New England (Cambridge, Mass.) and  back home work  in a College of Education, citizen's advice bureau, tourist information centre network, and the local studies department of the  library service.
   
• My final post,  before retirement,  was at the Heritage Hub - home of the Scottish Borders Archive, Local History & Family History Service.   My role  involved answering enquiries, conducting research for customers, compiling source lists, contributing to the Hub blog and presenting  workshops on family history.  Besides the standard family history sources of census returns, old parish records and monumental inscriptions, the Heritage Hub holds a rich collection of unique archival material not available anywhere else,  including:

• Militia lists from the times of the Napoleonic Wars
• Police, criminal and justice records from the mid 19th century
• Poor law records from c.1845
• School records from c.1873
• Burgh and county council records from the mid 17th century
• Valuation rolls of property from c.1860

Heritage Hub,  Hawick - home of the Scottish Borders Archive Service

I hope I can bring this  Scottish perspective to any discussion and am very happy to respond to  queries on Scottish records and on the Scottish Borders in particular. 
 

• I love following the ancestral trail, not only of my own Danson, Rawcliffe and Weston families of England (Lancashire and the West Midlands), but also my husband's Donaldson family who, with a mariner background,  came from Leith, Edinburgh's seaport and later moved to South Shields on the River Tyne  in north east England.
   
• Looking beyond Britain, my aunt emigrated to Australia just after World War Two, though sadly,  following her death,  contact has been lost with this branch of the family. However  thanks to my blog,  I am in touch with a third cousin in New Jersey and received a wealth of material from her.
  
   
• Setting up my blog (Family History Fun) and joining Geneabloggers brought a major boost to my family history activities.   I relish the blog experience of telling my family history stories to a wider audience (instead of boring my family), establishing  this different style of writing, and making new contacts with fellow enthusiasts - their comments and advice has been invaluable.  Let's face it, although we enjoy writing,  recognition from others is a great motivator.

Writing  family history narratives, rather than research,  has taken up my time over the past year.  However I am planning to redress the  balance here and highlight some of the pleasures and pitfalls of my current research in both local and family history 

Now away from the workplace, I am also realise that my computer skills have not kept pace with technology,   I would like to become competent in creating photo collages,  and I know I should be making  much better use of social media -  I am sure fellow bloggers have views on these topics.  

I look forward to being part of this new Worldwide Genealogy network.