Scotlands rugged landscapes and expansive wilderness continues to be the number one reason for American visitors to visit the land of whisky and highland coos.
Due the levels of mass immigration from Britain to the United States from the 18th Century onwards, around 25 million Americans can trace their family roots back to Scottish shores.
Now more than ever, our curious cousins from across the Atlantic are making the trip to their ancestral home, taking in the sights and latest figures show they inject a startling £1.2billion into the Scottish Economy.
They make up 20 per cent of tourists in Scotland, spending more than a third of all tourism income from all international visitors and increasingly they’re looking to find out more about their Scottish ancestors.
Americans make up to 20 per cent of tourists in Scotland
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Visit Scotland - the country’s leading tourism body - reports that more than a third (38 per cent) make the trip to find out more about their family links.
Cat Leaver, Director of Strategy at Visit Scotland says the American contribution to the Scottish visitor economy is “vitally important”.
She said: “The top drivers we know from our research are the scenery and landscapes, culture and heritage and quite often come with a romanticised view of what Scotland has to offer through film, TV and other pop culture references.
“But when they arrive they actually find something much deeper and connecting to our people and places that draws them back time and time again.”
On the growing appeal of tracing family heritage, she said: “Organisations like Historic Environment Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland do a world of work to make sure our historic places are preserved so they can feel what it might have been like for their ancestors.
“We can really help them tap into that history but also with the communities and businesses that work within the visitor economy, they’re the ones who welcome out visitors in.
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“We want them to see more of Scotland while they’re here, explore more, connect with more people and places across the country.”
Visitors taking a more direct approach to fleshing out the Scottish branches of their family tree, might employ someone like Yvonne Cavanagh, a Renfrew mum who started up her genealogy business, Kilted Cousins, in 2014.
Utilising public records, Cavanagh just needs two pieces of information to begin her deep dive into a family’s past.
It could be a scribble on a ship manifest or an obituary in a local paper, but once Cavanagh has completed her work, she produces a lasting keepsake combining an A2 printed photo adorned with family details spanning centuries.
Once in a while, her searches results in more than what her American clients were bargaining for.
She explained: “On one occasion I found out one of the great grandfathers had drowned in Greenock but I looked into it a bit more carefully and found out he’d been hailed as a local hero in the local newspaper at the time.
Visitors taking a more direct approach to fleshing out the Scottish branches of their family tree, might employ someone like Yvonne Cavanagh - who started up her genealogy business
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“He had actually drowned by trying to help somebody else at the time when he was out as a river pilot.”
Though some are always hopeful of that unicorn Scottish royalty link, nobody quite expects to uncover a murderer in the family.
Cavanagh added: “A lady that seemed to disappear off the face of the earth - I just couldn’t find her - and it was because she’d changed her name, I found out she’d been in prison accused of killing her lodger.
“I could see from a ship’s manifest that around the time she’d gone to prison, the grandmother fled to America with the children to reunite them with their father.
“That was quite an interesting one to unravel.”
