Burke's Landed Gentry in the 21st Century contains all the accustomed virtues of this great reference work. Yet as all its many admirers would rightly expect, it has been more than willing to embrace new opportunities - indeed to "reform to survive".

A 20th Century, characterised by socio-liberalism on a grand scale, has transformed the ownership of land through taxation strategies designed to redistribute wealth. The statute to abolish feudalism in the first Scottish Parliament of the 21st Century has formalised the end of dutiful responsibility for social caring by those who owned the land and confirmed society at large as the 'new order carers'.

Whilst it is indubitably politically incorrect to say so, I am unconvinced by such new order for social caring. Bureaucratic inhumanity rivals any of the excesses of feudalism, and its democratically legitimised power structure demonstrates little of the continuing responsibility that many landed families great and small so rightly felt and exercised.

Accordingly, the act and the form of publication here of the 19th Edition of Burke's Landed Gentry is a tangible assertion that continuing familial responsibility allied to cyber-feudalism can be, and need to be, key ingredients for the 21st Century. It is surely an event wholly in line with the call made by Elizabeth Roads, Lyon Clerk, in her article later that the 21st Century Feudal Barons in the Noblesse of Scotland, amongst whom I am proud to be numbered, should not overlook their opportunity too make such contributions.

The traditional landed families are joined in this 19th Edition by senior members of the contemporary establishment, many of whom by virtue of 20th Century values and drivers have attained high office without any necessary benefit of land or title.

This 19th Edition is also the first ever to appear in Regional Volumes, not to preclude access to the complete reference work for which Burke's Landed Gentry is justly famous but to honour the diversity of the Regions in these British islands and in doing so reflect some very real emotions and aspirations held by many in society today. In this volume on Scotland, for example, we have been able to provide valued linkages to traditional family tartans, with the careful guidance of the Scottish Tartans Society.

This Edition is also the last occasion in which Burke's Landed Gentry will be published as a discrete edition. Since April 2001 all the information contained in these pages, and the archive for the balance of these British islands, has been accessible on our website www.burkes-landed-gentry.com and we are already in the process of providing 'continuous' updating. As soon as any genealogical event occurs in any family we can be notified online and the family records updated. Equally we can immediately capture all changes in title, demographics and distinctions gained. Accordingly, Burke's Landed Gentry in the 21st Century has become the most up to date genealogical record available and much more valued because of its currency. This is not to say that we cannot or shall not respond to demand from time to time with printed selections as circumstances might require. This fine printed volume amply demonstrates that commitment.

The Internet offers one other great opportunity for us now and for the future, however. It has transformed the scope and extent of access we can offer. As that great Scottish moral philosopher and Father of economics, Adam Smith, observed nearly 50 years before the 1st Edition of Burke's Landed Gentry appeared, "demand is limited by the extent of the market". Our creation of www.burkes-landed-gentry.com means that anyone anywhere in the world with Internet access can, at the press of a key, gain 24 hour subscriber access to the very finest genealogical resources. They can download the entries they want in the certainty that what they are receiving has been collated and checked by the families concerned under the helpful supervision of our Editorial team led by Peter Beauclerk Dewar.

This truly magnificent leap forward in the accessibility of the Burke's Landed Gentry genealogical resource comes at a time when the increasingly leisured and affluent societies of the world are taking an exponentially growing interest in their ancestors and their cultural origins in general. And without pondering whether it be cause or effect, genealogical research on the Internet ranks as its third most popular use. For the growing descendant communities from these British islands, this ability to search so easily in the finest genealogical resources is more than welcome. It is a transformation. Furthermore we are able through Internet connectivity to join with myriad genealogical associations in making their members readily aware of what is now available.

Finally, but by no means of least significance as a publisher, the advent of the Internet has transformed the economics of researching and publishing Burke's Landed Gentry. The reason why this fine title did not appear between 1972 and 2001 was the daunting cost of updating and the limited extent of the potential market for any new edition that depended for its revenues entirely on full volume print sales. The Internet has transformed, once the Herculean 19th Edition is completed, the expense of updating; and the reach of the Internet with its 24 hour subscription access affords a new and wholly different revenue stream. New technology has provided, as it so often does, a way to the future that sustains what the past has bequeathed to us whilst enabling us to build further.

Our sincere thanks, and I am sure those of all readers around the globe, go to very many individuals who have enabled this 19th Edition to appear. First amongst this is Peter Beauclerk Dewar who has been invaluable as our Editorial Director. Our Senior Operations Co-ordinators have been Anne Christie and Gill Donald of Internet Research and Development Centres. Mike Cross and Andrew Easton have been responsible there for the website development, archive scanning and text transformations. Timmie Duncan and Lyn Coulton lead our marketing team both for print publication and in the more uncertain areas of e-business. Finally Malcolm Pearce and his production colleagues at Land and Unwin have ensured this printed volume is so beautifully presented.

Dr Gordon Prestoungrange
Baron of Prestoungrange