Needless to say we’re not very happy about this, and can’t see how McAfee could possibly justify this.

We have emailed McAfee to get them to explain and review this rating as soon as possible.

In the meantime, please ignore this warning and click the “Visit Anyway” link on the bottom right hands side of the screen.

Feb 2013 – Contact Us Page

Jan 2013 – Credit Purchasing Issue
There was an issue for some users where they were logged out by the time PayPal called back to the site. This may have been caused by popup / ad / cookie blocking software. We’ve now fixed this so that even if your browser does log you out between leaving our site to pay with PayPal and returning, the correct user still credited.

In July 2012 Northton Heritage Trust launched the first stage of our database of island families on www.hebridespeople.com – a database of all the emigrant families we have been able to trace from the Outer Hebrides. This has been very popular with family tracers, especially from overseas.

Now it is the turn of Harris!

For the first part of the main database – we have uploaded all the information we have gathered over the years about Harris families. These begin in about 1750, and go up to people born in 1920 – the cut-off date set by Data Protection. At the last count it contained records for 18509 persons, and more are always being added.

All you need to start research is a name – and some idea of a date of birth would be useful.  Type in the name – but remember that names and spellings have to be standardised to make the database searchable. This will call up all the persons of that name in the database, with the date of birth – approximate of course if you are working before the commencement of formal records in 1855.

From this you can select the entry you want, and this will then call up information on date and place of birth, parents (where known), spouse, marriage date and place, and death date and place.

This gives fairly full information about the person, but the web-site can take you much further. Each family has a unique reference number, so you can next call up family notes, which give a summary of the family history, with links to other related families.  The notes are based on the families as they appear in the census of 1851, working back as far as possible and forward to 1920. The amount of information will of course vary according to the size of family and whether they remained in Harris.

You may also like to try a family sheet. These are hand-written A4 sheets, showing the descendants of the head of the family, with details of the male lines, and cross-references to the sheets for the spouses of daughters. These begin with the head of the household in 1851, but of course he or she could have been born as early as the 1760s! Bill’s printing may be a little idiosyncratic at seems, but you will soon get used to it!

Each family has a unique reference number, which appears at the foot of the first information page, and by clicking this you will get a list of all the other persons in that family, and then can then call up details of as many of these as you wish.

There is also a gazetteer facility which gives access to a short summary of the history of each township and others in the immediate area.

Altogether, the database presents an unparalleled amount of information about families from the Isle of Harris, at what we consider is a very reasonable cost.

The next stage will be to add all the families from Point in Lewis, and other areas until the database is complete.

And I do think that complaints about bias in the choice of the first two areas are most unfair!

The project is funded by HIE, LEADER Innse Gall, Heritage Lottery Fund and Comunn na Gaidhlig. The website has been created and managed by Reefnet Ltd.

http://www.nordic.uhi.ac.uk<http://www.nordic.uhi.ac.uk/>

Programme Content

There are three exit points from the degree course: PgCert, PgDip and MLitt.

Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert) in Highlands and Islands Culture

Prerequisite: Hons degree

The Gaelic Legacy (CORE)

This module looks at the imaginative world of Gaelic culture through the ages and evaluates its legacy. It will explore dominant ideologies, key texts, and oral literatures. While being taught in translation, it will aim to give students confidence in the pronunciation of Gaelic and an understanding of metrics. It will look forward to the future for Gaelic literary icons.

The Highlands and Islands Story (CORE)

This module will give a chronological overview of the history, culture, and development of the Highlands and Islands area and analyse their influence on the lives of families and communities in the region.

Creideamh and Freutereis: Traditional Custom and Beliefs of the H and I (CORE)

This module will investigate the range of traditions in custom and belief, both religious and social, ancient and modern, which influence the lives of families and communities in the Highlands and Islands even in this day and age. These beliefs and practices will be placed in their cultural, historical and geographical context

Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) in Highlands and Islands Culture

Prerequisite: Completion of PG Cert and permission of Exam Board

Highland Voices: Music and Song (CORE)

In this module, students have the opportunity to develop their knowledge of the history of music and song of the Highlands from the 9^th century to present day. Students will investigate the development, application and significance of the instrumental forces of the Highlands throughout history, including the Highland bagpipes, harp and fiddle. Students will also investigate the development of the form and structure of a range of genres of music of the Highlands, including pibrochs, ballads, folk songs, music for dance and classical music. They will also examine the relationship between music and language, considering the significance of the Gaelic language throughout the history of the music of the Highlands. The study will also focus on the relationship between music and the broader culture of the Highlands, considering religion and the church, politics, economics, geography, society, literature and poetry and other art forms. Students will also investigate the effect of emigration and diaspora mentality on the development and significance of music, as well as the position of music of the Highlands in relation to the broader Scottish culture. The study will also consider the role and position of music within the Highlands in the 21^st century.

+ 2 from the OPTION POOL, one in each semester

Early Scottish and Norse Literature (OPTION)

This module aims to give students a sound knowledge of the literature of the Highlands andIslandsfrom earliest times up to 1600 in their linguistic, social, and literary context. The development of specific themes and styles in each language group will be compared and contrasted and the societies which produced them analysed. It will provide a literary context for those students wishing to take the Language and Palaeography of Older Scots option at PG Dip level.

Historical and Cultural Perspectives of the North Atlantic Rim (OPTION)

This module aims to look at the cultural and social disparities of the North Atlantic Rim regions in terms of historical background and cultural heritage and the influences both external and internal which have modified and impinged upon it. Particular attention will be paid to communities which are satellites of larger areas in the region commensurate with the status of the Highlands and Islands inScotland.

Introduction to Screenwriting (OPTION)

Students will learn how to develop a framework of screenwriting practice and will be encouraged to write a short screenplay. They will participate in critical workshops on their own and other writers’ work, and will be encouraged to develop a critical self-awareness and an enquiring, analytical and creative approach to their work. They will further their learning and creative abilities by participating in exercises and course assessment. The course will develop from an initial lecture and screening format, where examples of short films will be shown, to workshops, with group discussions and practical exercises being used throughout the programme. By the end of the course students will have developed a range of skills and critical facilities in screenwriting. In addition, they will have been offered the opportunity to develop and write a short screenplay with peer feedback.

Exploring Creative Writing (OPTION)

This module provides opportunities for the practice, study and development of creative and professional writing, operates at an advanced or publishable level and is intended to appeal to students with an interest in creative writing, those who want to develop their ideas with a view to completing a full length work and seek contact with others who are similarly minded in an environment that builds on the craft and practical business of writing such as editing, manuscript preparation, improvement, marketing, contracts and so on.

The Language and Palaeography of Older Scots (OPTION)

This module aims to give an in-depth knowledge of Older Scots Language. The course will also contain an introduction to palaeography and glossary compilation working from manuscripts and early printed texts. It will cover both literary and non-literary material.

The North Atlantic Rim Literary Context (OPTION)

This optional literature module seeks to offer students an insight through prose and poetry to the literary cultures of the North Atlantic Rim and the various forms of social organisation and social change of the North Atlantic Rim.

MLitt in Highlands and Islands Culture

Prerequisite: Completion of Pg Cert, Pg Dip, and permission of Exam Board

Research Dissertation (CORE)

This is a generic UHI postgraduate module. The module aims to provide students with an opportunity to undertake a sustained, rigorous and independent investigation of some aspect of material culture and the environment. There is an online UHI postgraduate dissertation handbook for student guidance.

The dissertation must consist of original work. It should be informed by the theoretical and practical knowledge and expertise which the participant has developed through other modules and/or in previously accredited learning. It should focus on a theme, topic or issue which is relevant to the subject. The resulting dissertation should not only present and interpret the research findings but also critically evaluate the research design and methodology employed; and identify the outcomes of the research in terms of actual or planned developments and changes.

Personal Development Planning

All UHI Programmes seek to reinforce core or key learning skills. These are generic and transferable skills that employers and others look for in candidates for employment or in preparation for other higher education Programmes. For UHI undergraduate programmes core or graduate skills are embedded in programmes and are identified as Graduate Key Skills (GKS) and are recognised as part of personal development planning.

At Masters level, it is important to consolidate and further develop employability skills and the concept of ‘graduateness’. Within the MLitt Highlands and Islands Culture, subject or field-specific skills are developed along with theoretical, intellectual and applied skills. The more generic skills of written and oral communication and Interpersonal skills are also developed within the Programme. Through the development of self awareness and self-directed study students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning and to be more reflective professionals. These abilities are particularly important for part-time and distance learning students, including those engaged in continuing professional development.

Because of the unique problems and sources involved in Hebridean genealogy research, we at Co Leis Thu? decided many years ago that there was no point in trying to trace any one John MacDonald or Donald MacLeod – what we had to do was to trace everyone in the Hebrides. At the moment, our Hebridean database contains over a quarter of a million people – and is still growing every day. We are working at putting this on line on a parish by parish basis, and the first one – Harris of course – should be coming on line later this year.

As the Hebridean database built up, we noted the families who disappeared from our records. Not all of these of course emigrated, but it is noticeable that, until about 1900, the main road from the Hebrides led west, across the seas to Canada, rather than to the cities of the British mainland. So we built up another database of people leaving the islands. If a family appear in a census record, 1841 or after, we can trace whether they appear in the next census. If they appear in an Old Parochial Register or a Chapel Register, we can also try to trace to trace them in later records. If they disappear, we can look for them in census records elsewhere in Britain, and if we still cannot trace them, we can be sure that they emigrated.

So much for who left – but where did they go?

Through our contacts overseas, and our own research, mainly in Canada, we have a good knowledge of the main areas to which Islanders emigrated at different times. A few must have left the islands, deported after the Jacobite rebellions, but they would have been few, and the chances of tracing them remote. The social upheavals after 1746 led to a mass migration of tacksmen and their subtenants, but this affected mainly Skye, though a few from the Outer Isles also left at the time, mainly for Carolina. An eruption of Hecla in Iceland in 1755 led to bad harvests for several years thereafter, and there was a major emigration from Lewis to the USA – to New York and Pennsylvania States – indeed the largest number of emigrants known to have left Lewis in one year was in 1772-73, when 831 emigrants are noted, though unfortunately not by name. The threat of religious persecution led to an emigration arranged by the Roman Catholic Church to Prince Edward Island, mainly from South Uist and Barra, beginnings with the Alexander in 1772. In the early 1800s, there was another move from Lewis to the Gulf Shore in Nova Scotia.

For these early emigrations, information is limited. There are a few – very few!- shipping lists and a few cemetery inscriptions, but in general our records for these emigrations depend on the information clients have been able to supply over the years. Most of these emigrants would have gone with a little capital with which to begin their new lives – and indeed the fear of the loss of their capital to Britain was one on the main reasons for later restrictions on emigration. The landlords in the Hebrides had the further fear that emigration would lose them their work force for the kelp (seaweed-processing) industry which was flourishing during the French Wars of the late 1790s and early 1800s.

Legislation was brought in, ostensibly to alleviate the overcrowding which was a problem with many of the early emigrant ships, but by increasing the amount of space and supplies required on board, it also increased the fares beyond what most would-be emigrants could raise. Nonetheless, many islanders were still able to utilise their meagre earnings from the kelp to fund emigration. The War of 1812 with the USA effectively closed that country to all but a few emigrants, and the focus of emigration changed to Cape Breton, along with continued settlement in PEI and a small number to New Brunswick.

In Cape Breton, settlers from Barra concentrated around the Barra Strait in the Bras d’Or, while South Uist went mainly to Grand Mira and the Boisdale and East Bay areas. North Uist went to Catalone, Gabarus and Mira, while Harris went to Grand River, Framboise, and St Anns. There were few settlers from Lewis at this point, and these were concentrated at Little Narrows and at St Anns.

Because the early emigrants to Cape Breton tended to settle in groups, we have often been able to identify their origins from their neighbours.

With the slackening of the restriction on emigration in the 1820s came the collapse of the kelp industry, and much of the population of the Hebrides became redundant, from the point of view of their landlords. Emigration was now encouraged, and in some cases enforced, and the flow of families, to Cape Breton in particular, became a flood. Even there, there was not enough good land for all, and there were settlements in the back glens which by their very nature were short-lived, and many families had to move on to the new industrial mining centres of Glace Bay etc.

The problems in the Islands were exacerbated by potato blight in the mid-1840s, and the consequent famine. Cape Breton was suffering from the same problem, so emigration there virtually ceased. Landlords at home were faced by another problem – the new Poor Laws would make them responsible for poor relief in their own areas, so it was to their advantage that as many people left as possible. No longer was it those who could afford the fares who left – those who had lost all in the famine were forced to leave – sometimes forced by economics, and sometimes by the landlords.

The Highland and Islands Emigration Society was set up, with Government assistance, to provide assisted passages to Australia. In the Outer Hebrides, the landlords of Harris and North Uist took advantage of the Society’s help, and almost 10% of the population left for Australia between 1850 and 1860. The Society kept records of all their passengers – they hoped for repayment of the moneys they had advanced – so there are detailed passengers lists for each ship, showing where the passengers embarked and where they disembarked, though unfortunately there are no records of where they settled eventually.

The landlords of Lewis and South Uist and Barra preferred not to work with the Society, but organised their own emigrations to Canada. There had been a Lewis settlement in the Eastern Townships of Quebec since the late 1830s, and emigrants’ fares were paid either to join them, or to go further west to Bruce County, Ontario. South and North Uist families concentrated on Middlesex County and the surrounding areas of Ontario.

Because these emigrations generally took place after the first census of Scotland in 1841, it is generally possible to trace the emigrants and their families – though in Bruce County, for example, there were so many MacDonalds from the West-side of Lewis that they are still difficult to disentangle!

From the 1880s, settlement in Canada moved on to the Prairies, and by this time we can be almost certain to identify families.

At the moment, the database deals with families up till 1920, though it is hoped to include the major emigrations of the 1920s in the next version of the database.

So, enjoy the database! If you are not sure how to use it, look under the heading of http://www.hebridespeople.com/shop/hp-products/
Basically, you buy a number of credits to let you into the system, and from there on, you can access the system by entering details of names, dates and places, if known. Do remember that the data-base is Mark 1, and an extension will follow later, so if you do not find the family you are looking for, we may still have information, so e-mail us, and we will see if we can help. As we have explained, the amount of information on a family will depends on the sources available, and in general emigrations after 1840 have the most detail. And if you have more information on a family than we do, let us know, and we will add it to the next version!

www.waipumuseum.com 

Vol 21 No 4

February 2012 

Greetings folks 

 We start this newsletter with a dedication to Betty Powell who passed away on the 20^th December 2011. Betty was everything to everyone…………..a heart of gold, a marvellous memory, fantastic hearing, not very good with paper, but she knew where to find anything she wanted at any given time, whether it was tucked away in her memory, or somewhere in the middle of her bundles of paper. Whatever – she gave many hours of her time to finding andconnecting Nova Scotian descendants with their ancestors, tracking down land titles etc. She contributed much to our genealogy database.

 Anne 

Betty Powell

BETTY POWELL – A GIFT TO WAIPU

by John McLean

Knowing how Betty always liked a good line, I once told her that she was one of only two people whom I regarded as indispensible. “Who’s the other?” she asked cautiously. “Churchill in 1940,” I replied. She gave her usual chuckle but this was no joke on my part as, if ever anyone belied the old saying that no person is indispensible, it was Betty Powell who, over the years, compiled the genealogy tables for the descendants of those who came on the six ships from Nova Scotia in the 1850s and 1860s. What is more, she retained in her head much of this information – a remarkable feat when one remembers that the Nova Scotians who came to New Zealand are probably the most difficult people for whom to compile family trees since so many of them had the same names and so many married their own relations with the result that there are thousands of their descendants, many of them bearing only about twenty to twenty-five surnames and about the same number of Christian names. Despite this difficulty Betty Powell managed to get her head around all these people and instantly recognise the particular ancestor that one was referring to or seeking out.

In his book, “To the Ends of the Earth” Neil Robinson described Betty as “a remarkable woman” – as indeed she was. “Ask Betty about an early relationship, however complex it might be, and there is an instant reaction,” continued Neil Robinson. “Her hand goes to her forehead, a look of intense concentration and, in almost every case, an answer will come through.” She was a human computer before computers became fashionable.

In “Sailors and Settlers” I wrote of the Waipu Museum’s genealogy records, “They are the fullest and most meticulously kept records of any group of colonists’ descendants (in New Zealand) and are the Antipodean equivalent of the Mayflower Descendants’ Association.” The fact that these records are so full and accurate is due more to Betty Powell than to anyone else.

Although full of information that she was always willing to share with others verbally, Betty had no inclinations in the writing sphere. This, coupled with the fact that she was getting on in years and was not in the best of health, was what motivated me to write “Sailors and Settlers” when I did as I knew that this priceless source of information would not be around forever. I used to ring her at the museum two or three times a week and we would go through the family trees of the original settlers and, oh how upset she would get if ever she found a mistake. “That’s not Roderick’s son;

it’s his grandson,” she would exclaim while tapping the computer to get it right.

The only real scare I had was when I rang up one afternoon only to be told that she had been rushed to Whangarei Hospital in an ambulance. “Oh hell,” I thought, “we’re only half way through the research.” But I needn’t have worried for, among other things, Betty always seemed to make a recovery no matter how bad the illness.

During the writing of the book I realised that Betty was much more than a genealogist. She insisted on a very high standard of historical accuracy and would never accept anything unless it could be documented. “You can’t write that,” she would say. “You can only write that it might have happened or that it probably happened.” Thus I knew that anything Betty told me came with a certificate of accuracy.

Then there was her judgement, which I came to respect the deeper our collaboration became. This, I believe, derived from her common sense approach to life. Although Betty was not descended from the Nova Scotians she was born a McLeod and was always interested in and proud of that clan’s history. She was the typical “no nonsense” Scotswoman and yet was always discreet and polite.

Although we spent hundreds of hours working on the genealogy section of “Sailors and Settlers” Betty and I only ever had one disagreement. I told her one day that I was having great difficulty working out all the various McInneses who came on the Breadalbane as they all seemed to have the same names and an excessive amount of intermarriage within their families. “They are the most difficult clan to work out,” I said.

“Oh, no,” replied Betty. “I don’t have any problem with the McInneses. The ones I have difficulty getting my head around are the McKenzies as there are so many of them.”

To which I replied, “I don’t really have any trouble with the McKenzies as, although there are a lot of them, they seem to slot into distinct families.” So, we agreed to disagree as to which was the most mind challenging clan.

Betty was not only my collaborator in compiling the last section of “Sailors and Settlers”, she was also my friend – as she was to so many people. In fact, Betty is a very useful friend to have as, in the event of ever getting through the Pearly Gates oneself, Betty is the one worth seeking out. Just think of all the people she knows Up There – more than anyone else as, through her massive genealogical exercise while on earth, she became acquainted with so many dead people – all those McKays, McLeans, McDonalds, her own McLeods and, yes, the McKenzies whom she had so much trouble sorting out while she was alive. As you read this she is probably busy discussing ships and the sea with Murdoch, the founding of Waipu with Duncan while keeping a wary eye on Kenneth “Omaha”, to whom no doubt her first words were, “Well, you made it through the Pearly Gates, you old scoundrel. Good for you!”

Betty has left a splendid legacy as the Waipu Museum, with its small, dedicated and utterly professional team of genealogists, is in the first rank of museums commemorating the pioneers. After her husband died Betty made the museum and its genealogical records her life’s work.

Throughout the ships’ voyages from Nova Scotia, the founding of Waipu, and later, the Hand of God could be seen at various times and this certainly seems to have been the case when this practical, curious and open-minded lady put her hand to Waipu’s genealogy and its history. We are lucky that she did so.

www.hebevents.com

Seallam! in Northton, south Harris, is well-known as a visitor centre and as a place of genealogical research – but over the decade since it was officially opened by Alasdair Morrison, the then MSP, and John MacDonald, Fort William and Northton in July 2000, it has flowered as one of the most comprehensive local bookshops in the Western Isles.
It is also part of one of Hebrides pioneering e-commerce operations – starting overseas sales with the help of the Internet in 1995 – long before former Prime Minister Tony Blair famously sent his first e-mail.

Obviously, since the entire centre, operated by the Northton Heritage Trust, is founded of the Western Isles family research of Bill Lawson, based next door in the Old Schoolhouse with his wife Chrissie since 1986, there are full range of Bill Lawson Publications – his latest Croft History is about to be published, for instance.

But there are as many other locally related books as can be attractively laid out on the tables and shelves of the display and retail area – and there are top quality coffees of various kinds plus teas and herbal/fruit infusions to keep thirst at bay as you look at the books. This is a place to browse and buy – you can stand and look at the books without being buffeted by people rushing after cards, toys or newspapers. In the winter, it has usually been the only place in South Harris to stop for a hot drink – although hot chocolate and biscuits is the best available in terms of nourishment as the kitchen area is not suitable for providing food items.

Chrissie, who is often available in the shop to assist customers, says: “We have the biggest range of local and Scottish history books. We keep a Hebridean theme among the books we sell. As booksellers you have got know what’s inside a book so you can bring it to life for customers. We live and breathe books.”

There are shelves of children’s books, too. A great number of the customers are people with families, Chrissie says, and so there are children’s books available, some in Gaelic, and as often as possible with an Island theme or background. Some of the books contain electronic sound or vision files to bring the themes more to life.

Natural history and archaeology form another major theme of the books, with books on birds, for instance, and a great collection of books on St Kilda and related themes. It was 2005 that the direct services to St Kilda run by Angus Campbell started to run from Leverburgh and over the years the demand for books on the distant islands from visitors waiting for their trip out or just back from the journey has grown. In the exhibition part of the centre there is a permanent but evolving display about Hirta and the other islands – indeed, the exhibitions on emigration and other subjects provide a major additional attraction for anyone visiting Seallam! In addition, there are specific sections devoted books from and about Lewis, Harris, and other parts of the Outer Hebrides.

And, of course, there’s a full range of works by local authors.

Chrissie points out that, although Seallam! is described as a visitor centre, it is far from being of interest only to visitors. “This is for local people as well. It has got lots of things of local interest,” she says.

Of course, the adjacent Schoolhouse is a source for many books – Bill Lawson has researched and written almost 60. In all, 57 are still available including the In History and Legend series covering North Uist, Harris and Lewis (Part 1) which are published by Birlinn. The remainder are under the couple’s own Bill Lawson Publications imprint. Of those, only the volume covering Harris source documents is out of print and that is because the Internet has made the originals far more widely available.

Using the Internet over the last 18 years, first through a Canadian company and then on their own account, has enabled Bill Lawson publications to sell books right across the globe – to many countries in Europe and further afield to the Yukon and Labrador in Canada, Hawaii, India, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea among many others.

The latest development in using the genealogical research information involves getting around 250,000 records on line in a scheme backed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Comunn na Gàidhlig.

For Chrissie who is from Sheshader, the village which was the subject of Bill’s first croft history, all this work allows a community gain which makes up in some way for the loss of the village school, now their home, but where one of her aunts used to teach.

So while almost all customers apart from those in Northton village itself, will have to drive or catch a bus to reach Seallam! there is a warm welcome and deep sense of community and history when you get there – plus shelves and shelves of books!

The chiefs let land to tacksmen, usually their own close relatives or junior branches of their family, in return for a rent, often in kind though sometimes in cash, and for armed support in time of war. So MacLeod of Berneray in Harris, who was a Jacobite supporter in 1745, while his chief in Dunvegan supported the Government, sent armed men to support his chief, as was his obligation under his lease, with a note that “I place at your disposal the 20 men of your tribe under my immediate command and in any other quarrel would not fail to be at their head, but in the present juncture, I must go where a more imperious duty calls me.”

But, by the time of the ’45, this type of social structure was fast disappearing. Many clan chiefs began to forget the ties of kinship, and to let the tacks on their estates on wholly financial considerations, to the highest bidder. This new type of tacksman had no need for the armed support of his tenants either, and so the amount of rent that they could be made to pay became his prime consideration.

Many of the old tacksmen had been involved in trading with Virginia – Kenneth Campbell on the Island of Taransay off the west coast of Harris had been trading directly with the tobacco merchants of Virginia, and there were still tobacco plants growing in the ruins of his garden there until recently. The Carolinas in particular seemed a suitable place to which a tacksman could transport his entire family and tenantry, to try to keep up a social position which was now being denied to him in Scotland. Many of the Skye tacksmen made the move, together with some families each from Lewis and Harris.

Donald Campbell of the Isle of Scalpay, off the west coast of Harris, had been a Government supporter in 1745, but when the fugitive Prince turned up at his house seeking shelter, Campbell found the obligations of hospitality much more important than the reward offered for the Prince’s capture, and not only gave him shelter but also chased off the island the local minister, who had arrived with soldiers to arrest the Prince and claim the £30,000 reward. In the 1760s Donald decided that the rent increases being sought by his landlord, MacLeod of Dunvegan, were more than the farm was worth, and emigrated with many of his sub-tenants to Cumberland County in North Carolina.

Another Harris tacksman to make the same move was Donald’s son-in-law Alexander MacLeod, tacksman of the Island of Pabbay, off the south-west coast of Harris, and of St. Kilda, fifty miles out in the Atlantic. He emigrated in 1774 and settled near his father-in-law. The intention was that the tacksmen would secure their social standing in the new world by setting up another clan system, with themselves as the chiefs and their tenants as clan followers, but the system did not transplant well, and many of their tenants drifted away to set up in their own right on new land.

When the American War of Independence broke out, most of the Skye and Harris tacksmen joined the British Army, and were soundly defeated at the Battle of Moore’s Creek in 1776. Donald Campbell, by then an old man, had not joined the army and was able to remain in Carolina, but MacLeod of St. Kilda lost two of his brothers in the battle, and was himself captured and imprisoned, eventually dying penniless in Charlestown in 1782. Many of the survivors of the war had to leave the new USA, and went as United Empire Loyalists to Canada, especially to Nova Scotia, or returned to Scotland, like Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh in Skye and his wife, the celebrated Flora MacDonald. Others no doubt lived on in Carolina but had lost their estates and incomes, and were reduced to relative poverty.

Some Island families had refused to fight for the British Government in the revolution, and most of the families who came from Lewis seem to have been among this group. Daniel MacLeod from Balallan in Lewis and his cousin Rev John MacAulay appear to have been the leaders of this emigration, but there were also some families who had emigrated at first to Pennsylvania and then migrated to Carolina, among them a group of Morrisons who claimed descent from the last Brieve of Lewis – the Brieve was a judge who derived his authority from the old Lordship of the Isles and retained much of his status even after the collapse of the Lordship.

Other families who are known to have left from Lewis include the brothers John and Kenneth MacIver, who lived in Chatham County, North Carolina, before moving to Tennessee, and John and Colin MacIver, brothers who were merchants in Alexandra in Virginia. Other families from Lewis were heading for Philadelphia, and we are fortunate to have the passenger list for one of their ships, the Friendship of Philadelphia, which left Stornoway in 1777.

Of course the landlords were unhappy at the prospect of losing tried tenants, and many estates offered reductions of rents if their tacksmen would stay. In Lewis the estate even took the step of court action to prevent Thomas Jann, Master of the Friendship of Philadelphia from “decoying, enlisting, indenting or otherwise seducing the ignorant inhabitants of this Island to emigrate to foreign parts, in order, as is believed, to sell and make merchandise of them.”

So there are several groups of families from the Western Isles who found themselves in the Carolinas and Virginia. Can they be traced genealogically? The families of the tacksmen who remained there can probably be traced. They would have kept good records of their land and possession – Donald Campbell of Scalpay’s will is reproduced in a Volume of Cumberland County Wills, for example – and there will be records in the Island Estate Papers, where these exist, showing their replacement as tacksman. The tenants and subtenants who went with them are much more difficult; they would have been wholly Gaelic-speaking, and their names would have been in the Gaelic patronymic form, not in English-style surnames. When the new American authorities took over, these people would have been re-named, often taking the names of their old tacksmen. The authorities would have been unable either to spell or to pronounce many of the names, and so we get versions such as McKeever for MacIver, McCloud for MacLeod etc. Others again would have used the name of their old home, and so we find surnames such as Lewis and Harris, which in Britain are usually Welsh, but in the Carolinas may be Hebridean.

Whether we at Co Leis Thu? can trace families from this area depends greatly on the amount of information with which we can be provided. If only the later names of the settlers are known, the chances of identification with an Island family are small. If however names or nicknames or patronymics of Scottish origin are remembered, then the chances are greatly improved. We have to remember that these can become altered in pronunciation and in transcription, so that the older the reference the better.

I am sure that a client will not object if I mention her own family of MacLeods who were nicknamed, apparently, MacForth. This made no sense in Gaelic, until we realised that the MacForth was not a name in an original document, but in a transcription of one since lost in a fire. When we began to think of what could have been mis-read by the transcriber as MacForth, we came up with the suggestion of MacTorkle, a phonetic spelling of the patronymic MacThorcuill, son of Torquil. The Daniel MacLeod from Balallan who we mentioned above as one of the organisers of emigration from Lewis, was himself mac Dhomhnaill mhic Iain mhic Thorcuill, and it seems a reasonable assumption that our MacForths were of the same family.

It is this kind of “sideways” clue which is so necessary in tracing families from this early emigration from the Western Isles, and clearly the chances of making a positive identification are small – but they do exist, and we have quite frequently been able to suggest the group of families to which an emigrant will have belonged, even if we cannot positively identify his place within that group.

Relations between the new USA and Britain were not good for many years, and we find that the next wave of emigrants went, not to the USA, but to Prince Edward Island in Canada and to Gulf Shore, on the coast of Nova Scotia opposite the Island. These will be the subject of our next article.