Tracing Your Glasgow Ancestors is a volume in the series of city ancestral guides published by Pen & Sword for readers and researchers who want to find out about life in Glasgow in the past and to know where the key sources for its history can be found. In vivid detail it describes the rise of Glasgow through tobacco, shipping, manufacturing and trade from a minor cathedral town to the cosmopolitan center of the present day.

Ian Maxwell's book focuses on the lives of the local people both rich and poor and on their experience as Glasgow developed around them. It looks at their living conditions, at health and the ravages of disease, at the influence of religion and migration and education. It is the story of the Irish and Highland migrants, Quakers, Jews, Irish, Italians, and more recently people from the Caribbean, South-Asia and China who have made Glasgow their home.

A wealth of information on the city and its people is available, and Glasgow Ancestors is an essential guide for anyone researching its history or the life of an individual ancestor. institutions, clubs, societies and schools.