Scottish Indexes Conference XXXII - Saturday 28 February 2026

Interested in tracing your Scottish genealogy? The Scottish Indexes Conference is an opportunity to learn new research skills, discover diverse records and see how others have put these into practice. If you want to trace your Scottish family tree, this is the event for you.

Don't live in the UK? No problem. We are live from 7 am to 11 pm UK time. We do this to make our conferences time-zone friendly. Each presentation is shown twice, once between 7 am and 3 pm UK time, then again between 3 pm and 11 pm. You can come and go throughout the day. A schedule will be posted on our website a week or so before the conference.

Donations

This conference is run through the kindness of your donations. We are delighted to be able to continue hosting these for the Scottish genealogy community.

If you are in a position to donate at this time, we greatly appreciate your support. We know that these are challenging financial times for many so we are keeping the conferences free with no recommended donation. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has donated to keep these conferences going.

Scottish Indexes Conference Donation -	£10 -
Scottish Indexes Conference Donation -	£20 -
Scottish Indexes Conference Donation -	£30 -
Scottish Indexes Conference Donation -	£50 -

Registration Instructions

It is free to register for this event on Zoom. Click here, fill out the registration form and you should receive an email confirmation within a few minutes. You will also receive reminders in the week before the conference.

Presenters

Coming up at the February 2026 Conference:

'Breaking Brick Walls: How local Family History Societies can help' by Alan Beattie, Chair of the Shetland Family History Society

'Introducing the Archives and Manuscripts of the National Library of Scotland' by Chris Cassells, Head of Archives and Manuscript Collections at the National Library of Scotland

'Using Scottish Indexes: Scotland’s Criminal Database' by Emma Maxwell, genealogist and co-founder of Scottish Indexes

'Researching British Prisoners of War, 1914-1919 and 1939-1946' by Ken Nisbet, Chair of the Scottish Association of Family History Societies

'Poor Law Records post-1845 in Glasgow City Archives' by Dr Irene O'Brien, archivist at Glasgow City Archives

'Family History Research at the National Library of Ireland' by Steven Skeldon, manager of the Family History Service at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin

'Patients and staff: stories of health and wellbeing' by Lorna Steele-McGinn, Community Engagement Officer for the Highland Archive Service

Scottish Genealogy Q&A hosted by Graham and Emma Maxwell, genealogists and co-founders of Scottish Indexes

Discover more about our speakers and their topics here.

Schedules & Handouts

Handouts: Emma has prepared the conference handout for the 31st Scottish Indexes Conference on 31 January 2026 which includes information on all the presenters and many of the resources mentioned during the day. Download the PDF handout here. If you are looking for handouts from previous conferences please see our Past Conferences page.

Andrew Armstrong has kindly prepared a handout for his presentation, 'Taking The High Road' which is available here.

Tahitia McCabe has also prepared a handout for her presentation, 'How did my Scottish ancestors get married?' which is available here.

Alison Spring has also prepared a handout for her presentation, 'Dive Deeper Into Scottish Church Records' which is available here.

Jane Harris has also prepared a handout for her presentation, 'Crofter ancestors and the Crofters Commission records' which is available here.

Emma Maxwell has also prepared a handout for her presentation, 'Locating Scottish Burial Records' which is available here.

Schedules: About a week before our next conference we will post schedules in a variety of timezones.

Speakers Past and Present

Discover more about the experts who have spoken at the Scottish Indexes Conferences.

Past Conferences

These events are designed to be interactive and are best watched live. Some presentations from previous conferences are available to watch again. Visit our Past Conferences page to see what you have missed so far and catch up with some of the presentations.