Trace your family tree

Get started

Edinburgh Libraries has free resources to help you trace your family's history both from home and the library.

Get started at home

Talk to older members of your family.

Look for letters, certificates, photographs and medals.

Search the Scotsman Digital Archive on the Your Library website for your family names.

Look on the Capital Collections, Edinburgh Collected and Scran websites for photographs and images.

Visit a library

To learn how to trace your family tree search the library catalogue and borrow a book on genealogy.

Search for relatives using Ancestry for free from within the library.

Visit the Central Library

The Central Library has official records and other sources of information.