DHS recently received a letter from Richard Rodger, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh, pointing out the fact that although much census data has been digitised and made available on line, only an anonymised version, with names and addresses removed is available free. Full versions must be paid for. In his paper “Making the Census Count, Revealing Edinburgh 1760 to 1900” he makes the case for the free access, both for professional and local historians and for genealogists, and suggests what those with a specific interest could do to improve our access.

The British Association for Local History have published their “3rd e-Newsletter“. It contains links to many talks and resources available on line, and I hope it may contain something of interest to our members.

The September 2020 edition of the “Great Place Scheme Dunfermline” newsletter is now available. It contains interesting information on a geophysical survey of parts of Dunfermline Abbey, with links to further reading.

Local History from Home The latest newsletter from the Scottish Local History Forum, Clish-clash is now available. This is another special edition which it contains a lot more links than usual. These go to websites of general interest to those of us interested in Scottish Local History and also to researchers, who cannot access their usual libraries. Please have a browse by clicking the links.

Dunfermline Historical Society July 2020 Greetings to all Dunfermline Historical Society members! July this year finds us all in a very odd place! I’m sure you would agree, since March, life has been very strange indeed! Hopefully all DHS members have been able to keep safe during this long and somewhat isolating time. As I’m sure you remember, in March the DHS Committee decided to cancel all remaining meetings for season 2019-20, also the trip to Thirlestane Castle which was planned for June this year. At that time this pandemic was in its early stages and no-one was quite sure of the best way forward, however, as events unfurled, we realised we had made the right decision by cancelling our meetings. Despite the fact there have been no DHS group meetings since February, DHS business has not stopped, and the Committee has continued to hold meetings using Skype sessions. Through these sessions we are able to monitor changing circumstances and discuss the way forward for the Society. There is, however, continuing uncertainty about when and how things can return to normal. As a result the Committee has taken another decision, namely that no DHS group meetings will be held this year of 2020. This, unfortunately, also includes our 50th anniversary celebration, which was due to be held at the Pitbauchlie House Hotel on the evening of our scheduled October meeting, Thursday 15th of that month. Present thinking is that we may not reconvene until either March or April 2021 at the…