After retiring and moving to East Yorkshire in 2017, David began volunteering at the Yorkshire Waterways Museum in Goole, where he applied his genealogical expertise to assist visitors tracing watermen ancestors. He became deeply interested in the lives of those watermen and their families, who once powered Yorkshire’s trade network. Following the museum’s closure in 2019, David pursued an MSc at Strathclyde, completing his dissertation—Yorkshire’s Watermen: Illuminating Their Lives with Genealogy—in 2022.

In David’s presentation, Yorkshire’s Watermen: Illuminating Their Lives with Genealogy, he shares key conclusions from his research and examines the extant Canal Boat Registers to see what extra insight they offer the family historian, illustrated with real examples from watermen families across the county.

Our speaker: After a career of more than thirty years in the IT industry, David Scrimgeour took a sabbatical in 2011 to pursue a long-held dream—researching and writing a book. His passion for family history had already led him to study for a postgraduate diploma in Genealogy, Palaeography, and Heraldic Studies at the University of Strathclyde. During his coursework, he discovered the remarkable records of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Wakefield, containing case notes for every patient since 1818. Over four years, David immersed himself in these documents, ultimately publishing Proper People: Early Asylum Life in the Words of Those Who Were There in 2016. David is today a trustee and founder member, of Yorkshire Waterways Heritage Society. See ywhs.org.uk.