Archive detectives: Tracing family history clue by clue

We receive loads of interesting questions in Reference Services. A lot of people want to know more details about their family history, but don't know where to start. We can delve into archives and records on their behalf and find those starting points for them. Some questions we can answer fully, but many lead us down unexpected paths. We love pulling at the thread to see what unravels and where it takes us.

An enquiry landed in the inbox which read:

"I am researching information on Robert N Laing and Son (seedsman and fruiterer) based in Greenock, Renfrewshire between 1930 and 1954.

Robert Laing died in 1954, I believe, and I wondered what happened to the business?"

Staring at these fragments of information, I noted down some resources I knew I could use to get some basic information and piece together the past. So, detective hat on, my first move was to locate the person and business in local sources for the dates given (1930 to 1954).

A good place to start looking for this sort of information is the British Newspaper Archive. One of our e-resources, this has thousands of digitised newspapers from across the UK available to view online. Including local newspapers for Greenock!

The British Newspaper Archive allows you to search for keywords in newspapers via place, date and newspaper title. I managed to find a couple of old adverts from the early 1900s in the 'Greenock Telegraph & Clyde Shipping Gazette' and the 'Clyde Bill of Entry and Shipping List'. They list Robert Laing & Sons as 'Fruiterers, Seedsmen and Florists'. And they were located at 33 Hamilton Street, Greenock.

The advertisement in the Greenock Telegraph stated that, as well as greengrocers, Mr. Laing was a florist and a pet supply salesman. The advert listed the business as selling supplies for parrots, canaries and larks. This was a fun surprise for me! I assumed they would be solely selling fruit and veg. I wasn't expecting them to sell birds of paradise too...

With my new leads, I presumed 'Robert Laing & Son' to be Robert N Laing's father's business. And that he then passed it on to his son later. But I wanted to check that this was in fact the case.

The easiest way to do this using the Library's family history resources is to check the census returns. You can do that on another one of our e-resources called FindMyPast. I checked some of the most recent censuses, and in the 1891 census, I found that my suspicions were right!

There was Robert Laing of Lyle Street in Greenock. He is listed as a 'Fruiterer and Seedsman' with three sons and two daughters. His first son, James Laing (Robert's elder brother), is listed as a fruiterer, whereas Robert N Laing is listed (at 19 years old) as a bookkeeper.

Hot on the case, I then wanted to check the Post Office Directories of Greenock to see what became of the business between the dates the enquirer gave me (1930-1954). I also wanted to check beyond 1954, to see if there was any mention of the business after Robert N Laing passed away.

Old post office directories tend to have separate 'General' and 'Trades' sections, so it can sometimes be a guess as to where to look to find registered businesses. I found some entries for Robert N Laing and his brother, James, in both sections of different years of the Greenock Post Office Directories. Here’s an example:

1930-31 General Directory

• Laing, James, Fruiterer, 33 Hamilton Street
• Laing, Robert N. (of James Laing) - 38 Brougham Street

From these records, it seemed to me that Robert N. Laing worked for (or with) his brother James who took over (their father) Robert Laing's business. Robert N. Laing may well have taken over the business after James retired or passed away. Unfortunately, since the Library doesn't have a complete set of the Greenock directories between 1930-1954, I couldn't say for certain whether this was the case, but a picture was emerging.

I noticed that Robert N. Laing was listed as 'retired' in the 1953 directory (a year before he died). There were also no mentions of 'fruiterers' belonging to either James or Robert in the Trades sections for that year or for 1957 (after Robert passed away). My educated guess would be that when Robert retired, the business also folded or was not passed on to anyone. Or perhaps another family member took over and changed the name of the business.

Even though I cannot know for sure what happened to Robert Laing's business, there is something satisfying about being able to use evidence to suggest the most likely turn of events. But it can also be frustrating to delve into the records only for the trail to turn cold.

With this enquiry, it was because the type of relevant sources we have in the Library stopped. A final answer as to what happened to the Robert Laing's grocery business was, therefore, going to be a struggle without checking elsewhere.

As is often the case with researching this kind of history, you have to go to multiple records to find more jigsaw pieces. While I can't present the full picture, I can recommend some other places which hold local records that may provide definitive answers as to what happened to the grocery business.

A good next step I suggested was to look for a more complete set of the Post Office Directories to see if they feature any more records for Robert N Laing and Son. My top suggestion is the British Library. They also have some of the Greenock Directories in their collections from this time.

But I also wanted to direct my enquirer to some local archives, as they are likely to have business and trade holdings in their collections. My final recommendation was to make further enquiries with the following institutions to excavate any more details about Robert N Laing:

• The Scottish Business Archive at the University of Glasgow
• The Mitchell Library, Glasgow
• Renfrewshire Council Archives
• Inverclyde Archives

This sort of enquiry is something I love looking into. I enjoy giving a reader clues into unlocking part of their family's story and ideas for where else to look for key information.

More than that, it lets both me and the enquirer explore working people, their families, and the local communities they lived and worked in. A lot of the time, working people have little written about them in the historical record. Any nugget of information you find is exciting. In this case, we can trace not only the working life of Robert N Laing, but his father and brother too.

Signposting other archives for family history research is also part of the job. These places hold a wealth of information and are for public use.

If you wish to learn more about your own family history, check out our Starting your family history research page. We also run a monthly family history workshop for those interested in genealogy. Listings for our workshops can be found on our Whats on.

Liz Carter works as a Reference Services Assistant in the Collections, Access and Research Department for the National Library of Scotland. She is part of the Reader Services team who work in the Reading Rooms, answer research enquiries and work on a variety of outreach projects.