ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates two sides of a fundamental divide over the purpose of family history. Riddell represents what we might call the old guard of Scottish genealogy, focused on detail and accuracy for its own sake rather than seeking to draw any wider conclusions from his research. Innes and his protégé Fraser, on the other hand, championed a rather different approach. Innes's editions were not merely proofs of descent, antiquarian indulgences or attempts at familial glorification. Instead they were the products of a new way of conceptualising family history which sought to embed the ancestral histories of Scotland's nobility within a historiographical framework that was national in scope. Clearly the family histories of the 1800s were shaped by their historiographical and social contexts. Family histories and pedigrees of ancient families, collections of charters and family papers, serve in a great measure the same purpose for modern times that cartularies of religious houses do for the more ancient.
