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Hogmanay, Fireballs and a Happy New Year!

2015 should prove an exciting year for family historians and anyone researching burial and cremation records.
Edinburgh's Hogmanay Midnight Fireworks (Credit Lloyd Smith)

Today, villages, towns and cities across Scotland are gearing up for magnificent Hogmanay celebrations. While the glorious firework displays seen over Edinburgh at New Year are a fairly recent phenomenon, the tradition of welcoming January with bonfires and torchlit processions dates back centuries. Although the word "Hogmanay" only appeared in writing as late as 1604.

My Scottish Jolly ancestors lived in the old county of Kincardineshire on the north east coast - just south of the coastal enclave of Stonehaven. From at least 1908, the people of Stonehaven have celebrated New Year in a 20-30 minute fireball ceremony, intended to ward off evil spirits from the old year in preparation for the next. The ceremony involves a group of local people swinging cages of giant flaming ragballs around their heads. Happily, members of the group are all trained and sober, ensuring that the crowd of thousands enjoy watching the event safely each year.
Edinburgh's Homanay 2013 Midnight Moment II (credit Chris Watt)
However you celebrate the New Year, to help you with your family history resolutions, Deceased Online is offering all database users the opportunity to double up on pay-per-view vouchers used to access all our records and data. The offer to access records on the database at half the usual cost ends on 11th January 2015. Simply enter the promotion code DOL2015 and the number of vouchers purchased will be automatically doubled. 
 
From the "Purchase Vouchers" screen, choose the voucher required and click "add to basket". On the next screen, click "add a promotions code" and then on the next screen insert the code "DOL2015". Then "add to basket" and "checkout".

And if that isn't enough, Peter at the excellent Lost Cousins website is offering a year's free subscription to Deceased Online (worth £89) in his New Year competition, which runs until midnight (London time) on Monday 19th January 2015. Full details of the competition can be found in the Christmas 2014 Lost Cousins Newsletter.

Looking ahead to 2015, Deceased Online will be adding millions more burial and cremation records. The new year will see additions from cities and regions in Scotland, Wales, along with England's North West, North East, West Midlands, West Country and London. As usual the Deceased Online team will be travelling across the UK, meeting database users and introducing new collections. We're all looking forward to attending WDYTYA? LIVE at its new Birmingham venue in April. 

Wishing you a Happy New Year and all the best for 2015 from everyone at Deceased Online!




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