Last spring I completed the online Future Learn course, ‘Genealogy: Researching your family tree’, delivered by the University of Strathclyde. Apart from some excellent teaching and guidance, the course also promotes and encourages online debate and discussion among students and one or two contributors sought guidance for finding out more about a relative who was understood to be a Freemason. There were very few replies to these queries so I thought I’d explain the background to this subject.