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Introduction to the Genealogy Section

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A lost history

The Scottish shale oil industry once employed many thousands of staff, yet very few records survive that list their names. The surviving company records of Scotland's shale oil companies passed to BP Oil Ltd, and most of this archive is now housed within our museum. The BP archive contains a broad range of legal, financial and technical records, but very little in the way of wage and personnel records that might be of value to the family historian.

Some other archive material has reached the museum through private hands including a few employment records that have survived through quirk of fate. For instance, an early pay book from the Uphall Oil Co. survived because the substantial ledger was re-used as a scrap book. Collectively the surviving documents provide very patchy coverage of the industry and record only a small proportion of those once employed.

Those records that have so far been transcribed are listed here. Work continues on processing further records.

Are you new to family history?

Company records, and the other information on this website, will probably be of most value if you have already sketched out your family tree using conventional research resources such as birth, death and marriage records, or census returns. These are available through Scotland's People and other family history websites, which also provide excellent introductions to the techniques used in family history research.

Even if you do not find reference to your ancestors in the company records, we hope that the other features of this website will add flesh to bare bones of information discovered in census returns and registrar records. The gazetteer section of this website, for instance, will provide information and illustrations of many of the places where shale workers lived and worked; whilst the occupations pages offers descriptions of the trades and professions associated with the industry.

We hope that these and other areas of information contained in this website will help you build a picture of an everyday working life in the shale districts, and stir pride in your family association with this special Scottish industry.