Argyll and Bute Museums and Heritage Forum

Argyll Families - our genealogical resources

In this year of Homecoming 2014 Argyll and Isles Tourism Cooperative produced a suite of leaflets to promote Argyll and Bute attractions. Argyll and Bute Museums and Heritage Forum provided information for the Heritage leaflets and website information on the ExploreArgyll.co.uk. Hopefully this will help locals and visitors in their journeys around our county as well as into their families stories.

The Argyll Families website aims to collate as comprehensive a list of Argyll and Bute genealogical contacts that we can create together. This can be kept up to date as we learn more. It is presently sited at - you can see screenshots below.

It would be really useful to have a rough idea what you might be able to offer visitors (and that includes those from our own area as well as abroad).. this can be changed as your resources develop or if you plan to do something special.If we can identify any of the personal / local services that visitors can access, they will be immensely grateful. It is important not to raise expectations too high, but it will raise awareness of the very extensive family and local history resources that we have across Argyll and Bute.. we will probably each learn of people and places that we never knew about !

For those locations who experienced frequent enquiries, but do NOT have provision that family historians might be expecting, this might be a useful resource to clearly state what you do and do not have. Often it is anticipated that Clan buildings will have Clan family information available; some do and some don't. It would help to be able to share what can be accessed and where.

This service may also help those places who do NOT have any of these services to be able to pass on information to those who enquire every year.

Hopefully by giving visitors good clear information as to who is offering what help, and about which areas or families, this will help us all and you will have some wonderful experiences with people connected to your area and families.

This does include the online services, as well as local repositories of expertise. It may be just local lore, maybe some records, or photographs. Whatever you know about please share.

Please feel free to pass this on to any other researcher, group, organisation in Argyll and Bute, I would rather everyone got more than one, than we miss someone out. Professional and amateur researchers are equally welcome, as are tourist businesses who have accumulated local information that they are willing to share.. Join in, everyone.

We are known for our Warm Welcome.. let's prove it.

Please Email your completed forms to - this is the preferred method as it means your information can be copy/pasted directly. This means it will be done soonest. Please remember we are all volunteers.

If absolutely necessary you can post to

Argyll Families, c/o Kintaline Farm, Benderloch, Oban, PA37 1QS

Looking forward to hearing from you all .... Jill Bowis,

ARGYLL FAMILIES

Please fill in as much information as you want, and attached a couple of images if you like.

Are you : an individual / private group / a voluntary organisation / a charity / a genealogical business / other - please explain

(if you have more than one identity please fill in separate forms, thank you)

Name of organisation (if relevant) :

Name of contact :

Geographical Area (s) of interest :

Names of interest :

Other topics :

Preferred means of contact and details :

Would you like your contact details to be published ?

on the Argyll and Isles Tourism Cooperative webpage (

(space here will be limited to the main organisations, but hopefully will grow)

on the Argyll families website which will be

(we can add full details of areas of interest etc, events, services on this site, limited only by my time ! so please make it easy to copy and paste, there are no space limitations here, you can include a couple of images too)

or would you rather they were kept for private connections only

(we can put up the area and names of interest and ask people to email for contact details)

Your Website :

Any further information you want to give to help people find the right place to ask for help

For example, but not limited to - do you offer

  • lookups
  • images
  • family trees
  • voluntary genealogical services
  • paid genealogical services
  • guided visits in your area
  • what else ???

Do you or can you offer any particular service for family history visitors for the coming year?

Do you have any special events for our ancestral tourists?

Do you have any projects that our ancestral tourists can get involved in? ..

Can people volunteer to come and help you with something you are doing to pay back for all the work you do, and get involved in the heritage of Argyll and Bute?

What other online links can you suggest for your area of interest?

What other physical resources are there to visit in your area? churches, records, museums

Is your service one that requests donations, or requires payment ?

Remember that family historians are also local, and new people are constantly joining in the hunt for their ancestors, so this resource will be of value to people from near and far.

The Argyll Families website : ABMHF genealogy resource