´ó¿§¸£ÀûÓ°Ôº

Hi Patricia and welcome to the Forum.

No problem with your post.  It would be fantastic if one of your ancestors were to see your post and I hope our Forum helps you in some way.  You've mentioned your husband being a Mason, such organisations are always useful for contacts.  Other potential sources of information are local Facebook groups.

My family also emigrated to the US (albeit a lot earlier than your husbands) and settled in the Kentucky area, 200 years later, we ended up back in the UK and were lucky that one member of our extended family kept in contact with our mother, otherwise, we would have known nothing of our roots; today we have a large family network and are still making new friends.

The point of all this - keep going, keep searching, you never know who you will bump into that has that one clue that will open up your next search.

I wish you the best of luck in your journey.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic, thank you for your helpful response. We have tried Facebook just looking for familial names. I’ll get a little more creative with search engine. Patricia R

Hi again.

Try this .

Cynic
Expat Team

Thank you! I am in the process of getting ahold of them now. May I continue to communicate with this site? If anyone would like to scan telephone pages with the names Ruddiman and McGilvary so I can start some inquiry, that would be lovely. When I try and get on "white pages" on the computer that says free, it is anything but. It is a maze trying to find out anything!
None the less, we'd still appreciate getting together for a beer or at least getting dinner recommendations. Does that work?
Patricia R

Patriciar315 wrote:

Thank you! I am in the process of getting ahold of them now. May I continue to communicate with this site? If anyone would like to scan telephone pages with the names Ruddiman and McGilvary so I can start some inquiry, that would be lovely. When I try and get on "white pages" on the computer that says free, it is anything but. It is a maze trying to find out anything!
None the less, we'd still appreciate getting together for a beer or at least getting dinner recommendations. Does that work?
Patricia R

Hi Patricia,

I have no trouble using this site and its FREE.

Hope that helps

SimCityAT
Expat Team

Hi again.

No problem with asking questions on here, it's what we do.

With regard to telephone pages, except for business directories, they don't exist here anymore.  I can't remember the last time we got one; the space on the bookshelf they used to occupy has now been taken over by a flower vase.

There is an online version () supplied by the old national UK phone supplier (British Telecom), I don't think they charge.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi again.

No problem with asking questions on here, it's what we do.

With regard to telephone pages, except for business directories, they don't exist here anymore.  I can't remember the last time we got one; the space on the bookshelf they used to occupy has now been taken over by a flower vase.

There is an online version () supplied by the old national UK phone supplier (British Telecom), I don't think they charge.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

That was the link I gave, and yes you can still get them, but you need to request them I believe.

SimCityAT wrote:

Cynic wrote:

Hi again.

No problem with asking questions on here, it's what we do.

With regard to telephone pages, except for business directories, they don't exist here anymore.  I can't remember the last time we got one; the space on the bookshelf they used to occupy has now been taken over by a flower vase.

There is an online version () supplied by the old national UK phone supplier (British Telecom), I don't think they charge.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

That was the link I gave, and yes you can still get them, but you need to request them I believe.

Don't think anyone supplies an actual phonebook in the UK anymore; all there is now is a local business directory, which is a freebie put through your letterbox once a month.  I recall just before I retired that the company where I worked turned the national phone book library into a server room.

One thing that I didn't realise was that BT actually sold off the National Directory Enquiries, which is why we got a plethora of 118 numbers a few years back - they do cost money to use.

Thanks to both of you. I was able to use the link and found three names that are promising. I was only able to pull up Central Scotland but, that's good enough for me! Our book bound yellow pages are a joke. They are printed in such itty bitty font that you cannot read it. I just throw it out when we get it, once a year, There are no more white pages except on the computer. Almost all the advertisements say "free." That's a lie. You can put in the name and it will say we have an address and telephone number, now pay.  The other website has also been encouraging and very friendly. I'll keep in touch and be asking questions along the way.
Are you guys quarantined? We are retired so haven't had to worry about work but were pretty busy doing "stuff" and playing cards at the senior center. I'm finding it hard to be motivated enough to get dressed in the morning. Hope this is over soon. Our idiot president is our only form of daily entertainment. Talk to you soon,
Patricia

Hi again.

We're locked down at the moment; essential travel only, so I think you'll have to wait and see how that goes before you can carry out your trip.  On the bright side, the numbers are going the right way in terms of numbers of victims and the infection rate, so life can get back to some semblance of order.

Of what we know right now, until they come up with a vaccine or cure, life will not go back to how it was pre-COVID:

Social distancing will remain for the foreseeable future with all that means in terms of impact on travel and social gatherings.

Face masks may become a requirement when travelling.

Airlines are suffering badly, some had already gone to the wall before COVID, many have since announced redundancies and are really worried they may not make it without significant share-holder/government support; less capacity will mean higher fares for those still flying.

Because COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic, it means it is no longer an emergency as far as your travel insurance is concerned and many policies are limited to emergency only - please check your insurance to ensure you're covered.  For us guys living in the EU, this issue means problems for our E111 Medical cover unless the EU changes the rules.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic you get the Phone Directory every 2 years, spoken with my dad and sister. You must be Ex-directory?

Hello everyone,

@ Patricia: Welcome to ´ó¿§¸£ÀûÓ°Ôº I wish you good luck in your plans to find people in your family tree once the health crisis is over.

Please note that a new thread has been created with your posts on the Scotland forum in order to highlight Patricia's search. @Patricia: This will ensure that your original post gets more visibility and hopefully, more responses from members who can provide some clues to help you.

All the best,

Diksha
Team ´ó¿§¸£ÀûÓ°Ôº

SimCityAT wrote:

Cynic you get the Phone Directory every 2 years, spoken with my dad and sister. You must be Ex-directory?

Yes, we are ex-directory.  15 years ago (the latest set of data I can find), over 50% of the country was ex-directory and that number was climbing every year up till then, so I suspect not a reliable source any more.  Before I retired (a couple of years ago now), the company I worked for had a phone book library as part of the Sales/Marketing team - 1 guy worked there doing nothing but maintaining the library, scanning old books etc; as I think I said elsewhere, I understand that when I left, the whole thing has closed and they gave the office to the IS team for a new server room.

I wonder if because I'm ex-directory, that means that any search on our address is only going to show the previous occupants.