“My journey started when my father uncovered an old photograph of his grand-parents. It was amazing how a simple photograph got me thinking and wondering what life was like for them and wondering what circumstances may have influenced their decision to emigrate.
“I knew that the family originated in Italy and that my grand-father was born in Scotland because his parents had emigrated there from Italy around 1903. Using this limited information to search the internet, I was quickly directed to the ‘ScotlandsPeople’ website.
“From the site I was able to uncover a great deal of information about my great-grandparents and their eleven children! When I thought I had exhausted the information available on-line, I got in touch with the National Records of Scotland to ask whether a personal visit to the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh might enable him to access further records and uncover more detail. The answer was yes! So I decided to drive up to Scotland and spend a few days in Edinburgh.
“The ScotlandsPeople Centre is a fabulous place and the staff there extremely helpful. Apart from the records of birth, death and marriages, access to the 1911 Census gave me a great insight into the make-up of the Tamburrini household at that time. Some of the information from it raised further questions about the family and their business’s and occupations.
“Using both the ScotlandsPeople website and the Centre facilities, I was able to uncover further details of his grandfather and his siblings. Using that information, I managed to track down the Parish Church, St. Augustine’s in Coatbridge, where they had been baptised. I made arrangements to visit the current parish priest who was very helpful in locating baptismal records and even introduced me to an old parishioner who, as a boy, knew of the Tamburrini family and even remembered the Ice Cream parlour they had in Coatbridge.”
“My visit to Scotland was extremely worthwhile and I’m hoping to visit again to continue my ancestral discoveries!