FEW can doubt the enormous potential benefits of ancestral tourism.
More than 50 million people across the globe claim some kind of Scottish kinship, yet only about 213,000 visit Scotland each year to conduct ancestral research, spending around £100m.
There is therefore much scope for growth - surveys have suggested that the market could grow nearly five-fold over the rest of this decade, bringing in around £2.4 billion.
Anything that helps that process along is obviously welcome, so it is gratifying that the world's largest genealogy showcase is coming to Scotland for the first time for Homecoming 2014, the country's big year of culture, sport and heritage.
Organisers have managed to revive a plan - shelved last year - to stage the BBC spin-off Who Do You Think You Are? Live in Glasgow this August, after successful negotiations between the Scottish Government and the show's producers. Up to 18,000 people are expected to take part.
We may all be Jock Tamson's bairns, but we are fortunate that so many, from all parts of the UK and from overseas, want to research that lineage to great-grandparents and beyond.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article