It has been a few weeks since the course on the Scottish Diaspora ended. The last online discussion was a time for students to offer suggestions and reflections on what we have learned. I would recommend this course to any person who is interested in how the economic, social, and political history of Scotland shaped the migration of Scots to all corners of the world. 
The course included information from historical records found in government archives to provide a basis for understanding “what” happened and a “how” the migrations / emigrations took place in the 1700-1900s. However, to get a deeper understanding of the “why” and the “who” the course used primary sources, such as personal accounts and personal letters. It was very interesting to read transcribed letters of the emigrants and the people the emigrant left behind.
The class members discussed at length about the ongoing need for preservation and transcribing of historically significant family-level documents, such as wills and genealogies. Also, there is a great need to collect and hand down to the next generation family photos and letters. This discussion shifted to the challenge of preserving the current family information in an electronic age. While it seems that people have hundreds of photos, few are labeled with the names and dates of the persons in the photo. Furthermore, with communications now more than likely emails, texts, or social media postings, this rich information source is more elusive. We thought about how rare it is for someone to print emails which may not at the time be important but may hold a significant genealogy clue for the next generation. For example, if it was not for a letter written by my great-great grandfather’s daughter in 1930, we would have never been able to unlock my family’s Irish genealogy.
We have a challenge:
Leslies worldwide must collect, archive, preserve, and make available information about the family of Leslie for future generations.
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