The heritage of your
Scottish ancestors

Take a trip down memory lane with us

Our Scottish Heritage archive started in 1989 because I was proud of my rural ancestors and what they did. Having been born on and brought up on our family farm called Drumnaheath Kintore in Aberdeenshire Scotland. It was there where 300 years of my ancestors had also been born  and brought up. So my cultural identity and my family history was right on my doorstep. I wanted to celebrate their achievements by allowing the older ordinary people within my community to tell their story. This was the story of Scottish people. Many had also families who had been on the same farms for hundreds of years. I wanted to get their story captured by allowing them to tell their story their way. The first thing that I did was to go round my neighbours and speak to them about their ancestral past and that of their ancestors. This was like turning on a memory tap as I walked down memory lane with them.

Drumnaheath farm where I was born

An ecommerce book was produced

Our PDF book about the transition from the Clydesdale horse to the tractor in Aberdeenshire

Nobody had ever asked them about their ancestral past before. At that point in my Scottish heritage journey  I had decided to write their story down. I also gathered and capture some photos they had and ones I took. After this was completed I realised that what I had committed to paper was just scratching the surface of my ancestral past. That written narrative with its many photos is called “Aberdeenshire farming life during the transition from the Clydesdale horse to the tractor”. It is available to purchase digitally BOOK

A promotional input from the 1930s showing the transition from Clydesdales to the Fordson tractors

The horseman walked eleven miles per day when ploughing

My heritage filming started

So, in absolute ignorance of filming my heritage filming started. I decided to hire a video camera and go back to my neighbours and get them to tell and more importantly show me aspects of their past cultural way of life. What they told me was a fantastic story. I feel so privileged to have been able to listen to and capture that story. Recording it on the most dynamic format available to us ie digital film. I did not allow the camera to dominate what I did. The key criteria were the lovely and remarkable people I have recoded. We did not do any rehearsals. Everything was done in a spontaneous way and done in a one take.

Farming was our initial focus

Being a farmer’s son we concentrated on capturing rural agricultural  heritage and work. We soon realised that no community lives in a society with only one element that shapes them. So ,we started to record the past social heritage and history including education, religion, trades and skills, retail, entertainment and leisure etc. This resulted in our Scottish heritage archive having 14 different categories. It was now more representative by capturing the diverse picture of Scottish cultural identity. For me it also captured the life and work of the ordinary person.

Hay time on the farm

From the late 1800s to the present day

Our filming records the period of time from the late 1800s to the present day. People challenge me on how can I record aspects of life from the late 1800s. The old people I was recording  as youngsters  lived as part of an extended family. That older group had grandparents and even great grandparents who lived very close by. So, the people I was recording could also relate first hand  to their ancestors.  This made them the authentic storytellers about how their ancestors lived and worked from Victorian times.

The largest Scottish heritage archive in the world

To date we have the largest modern day  digital Scottish heritage film archive of any community with over 530 hours recorded. All our footage is digital for 24/7 access. We are continually adding unique and authentic Scottish cultural content to our archive. Filming rural life today in 2025 will be fascinating to watch in one hundred years time. Digitising our material make it future proof. I know I am leaving a legacy for my fellow man to appreciate and marvel at. Not many people can state that they have left a legacy for others to enjoy. If you become my sponsor your name will also be remembered in perpetuity.

State of the art technology

All our clips are digitised

We use state of the art 21 century technology to create  manage and present our history archive. Our footage has been made into 2570 individual digital download clips linked to a searchable computer database. This future proofs our archive and no other cultural film archive has its entire collection digitised. This achievement has been done by myself as a one man business with no budget.
So if you want to find out about how YOUR ancestors lived and worked our digital downloads from our SHOP  will provide you with many authentic examples of your past cultural identity. Our clips will help you to connect to your Scottish ancestors and allow you to walk in their footsteps. If you want to suggest any future topics that we might be able to produce just let us know.