Genealogy Starting Points on the Internet

[Erisianmonkey]

Some good advice here for you, Jamie. I'll definitely add my vote to the LDS site, Rootsweb, and USGenWeb. Those were some of the biggest helps to me when I was doing a lot of research. Especially USGenWeb. The project is an attempt to get all extant government records accessible online. Using info from their NY and PA affiliates, I was able to trace a line that had been a dead end for those researching our family for over 20 years. Just remember to verify!

Good luck, and have fun. It's almost as much fun as drooling over tartan samples.

[SteveB]

Gentlepeople,
I spend many hours in genealogical research. I am current president of the National Society of Old Plymouth Colony Descendants, and president of Piscataqua Pioneers. I assist many applicants and others in their research from my home. My spouse is the historian for the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants... genealogy day and night. Our house is home to four thousand genealogical books that we have purchased over the last twenty-five years. The published vital records of most of the cities and towns of New England reside up in our "office". The living room wall of shelves is loaded with a variety of works on Scot, Irish, Welsh, and British records, and families/clans. We do have subscriptions to a few internet services. When using Ancestry.com the "Historical Records" tab will lead you to mostly accurate information. The "Family Trees" tab will lead you to what has been submitted over the years, and although corrections have been made, the erroneous information is never removed. There are very many errors. The Ancestry trees are a good frame to base your research as long as you verify each "fact" against a primary document.
The local library may be of benefit. A good many genealogy works are in the inter-library systems, but must be used on the premise of the receiving library. I have the good fortune to live in Boston, Massachusetts. The New England Historic Genealogical Society Library is a short subway ride from my house and has over 100,000 genealogical works available to its members. Two blocks from the Hist-Gen is the main library of the Boston Public Library, in whose McKim building there are hundreds of thousands of documents and books from the beginning of our nation to today. A wee bit longer walk is the Boston Athenium's Genealogy Library, another treasure trove of information.
Once you have researched as much as you can on this side of the pond, the next stop in Scot research is the Scotlands Family Tree website. It is a genealogical cooperative of people helping people with research in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The subscription is only a tenner (10 GBP) a year, and well worth it. Another website for the UK, Scotland, and Ireland is the Origins website, it is a little creeky to get into, but it has a lot of useful info.
I did forget one thing... Many of us have our Scot heritage by way of Canada, and usually Cape Bretton, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia are the routes of social migration. Gen-web Canada, and the New Brunswick genealogy sites are coming into their own for this type of information. I know of a lot of MacNaughton families in New Brunswick and on P.E.I. from these sites.