Many people come to Scotland to explore their family history and Hawick is a fantastic place to base yourself when investigating your Scottish roots.

From our local Family History Centre, you can trace your ancestry from not only the Scottish Borders but from all over Scotland.

The Heritage Hub in Hawick provides access to ScotlandsPeople, a resource to access all of Scotland’s ancestry records alongside the Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Service.

ScotlandsPeople costs only £15.00 per day to use and you can have unlimited access to one of the World’s best online sources of original family history information.

There are almost 100 million records to look through for Scottish ancestry research, with census, wills, statutory birth, marriage and death, Old Parish Registers and Roman Catholic records and a growing series of Valuation Rolls (property-based but with a lot of names included).

Colterscleuch is a great base to investigate your ancestry from. We are within easy reach of all the Border towns and villages and after a day of piecing together your roots and visiting your past, there is space to relax and enjoy life as it is now in this wonderful region.

The Common Ridings

Each town has it’s own Common Riding taking place during the Summer months and they really are a sight to see.

Hundreds of townspeople on horseback can be seen riding around the outlying land of each town and through the town centres, reliving a centuries old ritual. It’s the biggest event of the year in the Scottish Borders, with young and old getting involved in the ‘ride outs’ and celebrations.

Hawick hosts many events during their week long festivities at the beginning of June including fancy dress parades, torchlit processions led by pipe bands, and battle re-enactments where the public can join in with rubber swords.