AHRC Anglo-Scottish Migration Project

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing from the University of Manchester regarding a project that is currently taking place in the Department of History. The project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is entitled ‘Anglo-Scottish Migration and the Making of Great Britain, 1603-1762’.

The primary aim of the project is to bring together people interested in migration between Scotland and England in this period, to assess how well (or not) Scots integrated into English society. It is our hope to enlist the expertise of members of local history societies and genealogical societies who would like to share their research and ideas.

There are two aspects of the project in particular that might interest your members. The first is that we are working to develop an interactive database (a wiki) with genealogical information of Scots who made their way to England in the 17th and 18th centuries. This will eventually be open access, however to ensure its ease of use and functionality we are initially adding the information ourselves. We would very much like to encourage members of local history and genealogical societies to send us information regarding Scots they have come across in their research, an in particular the types of sources in which they appear. This will greatly help us get the database up and running and will provide an invaluable resource for the future.

A second opportunity for your society to be involved would be to undertake a preliminary study of the role Scots played in your local communities between 1603 and 1762. If a member of your society is interested in doing this, we will be hosting a conference in 2014 to bring representatives of local genealogical and historical societies and academics from across the UK together to discuss the subject and to brainstorm how such research can contribute to all of our research interests.

We would ask that you communicate this twofold invitation to your members and encourage them to contact us if they would like more information. They can write to me at scott.spurlock@manchester.ac.uk. There is also additional information on our project website, which can be found here: http://www.angloscottishmigration.humanities.manchester.ac.uk

Many thanks for publicising our project to your members and we hope to hear from some of them soon.

With all good wishes,

Scott

Dr R. Scott Spurlock, FRHistS  FSA Scot
Research Associate in British/Scottish History
University of Manchester
http://www.angloscottishmigration.humanities.manchester.ac.uk