Scottish Indexes Conference XXXI - Saturday 31 January 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

Zoom: 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.

Facebook: This is an easy way to watch and interact with the presenters and attendees of the Scottish Indexes Conference. It is also possible to cast the conference to a smart TV which makes viewing more comfortable. Click here to join the Scottish Indexes Facebook Group.

Presenters

Coming up at the January 2026 Conference:

'How did my Scottish ancestors get married?' by Tahitia McCabe, Head of the Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical Studies

'Taking The High Road' by Andrew Armstrong, genealogist at Relatively Scottish

'The Edinburgh Public Dispensary, Patients and Doctors' by Daisy Cunynghame, Heritage Manager & Librarian at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE)

'Dive Deeper Into Scottish Church Records' by Alison Spring, genealogist at Scottish Ancestral Research

'Crofter ancestors and the Crofters Commission records' by Jane Harris, retired genealogist

'Locating Scottish Burial Records' by Emma Maxwell

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

Discover more about our speakers and their topics here.

Schedules & Handouts

About a week before the conference we will post schedules in a variety of timezones. Following the conference, any handouts provided by the speakers will be available here. If you are looking for handouts from previous conferences please see our Past Conferences page.

A day or so after each conference we post a general conference handout. This will include information about each presenter along with links shared in the chat during the day. This is usually available by the Monday after each conference.

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.