Ships from Ireland to Early America, 1623-1850. Volume II

The aim of this pamphlet is to provide a Scottish sourcebook for the period 1600-1850 which identifies the range of maritime sources available and where relevant information both published and manuscript can be located within Scotland. The author breaks down the broad range of maritime records into the following seven categories: Royal Navy, Merchant Navy, Fishing, Whaling and Smuggling, Privateers and Pirates, The Slave Trade, and Court Records (including the High Court of Admiralty of Scotland, and the Court of Session). In each case, he provides an historical introduction to a particular record classification, as it impinges on the availability of the records in question. Mr. Dobson then goes on to itemize the key manuscript collections, the repositories where they may be found, and a number of books and articles which promise to shed additional light on each of the record groups.

Central Scotland includes the counties of Stirlingshire and neighboring Clackmannanshire, which stretch from Loch Lomond and the Trossachs to the upper reaches of the River Forth. The region is partly in the Highlands and partly in the Lowlands. Most of the early emigration from Central Scotland was by individuals or family groups, but in 1773 the Arnprior Emigration Society formed by farmers in west Stirlingshire organized an emigration to Vermont. In the early 19th century three other emigration societies in Stirlingshire"""Alloa in 1817, Balfron in 1821, and Deanston in 1821"""organized groups of emigrants bound to Upper Canada. The entries in this work, to some extent, enable family historians in the Americas, Australasia, and other locations to link with their kin who remained in Scotland. The Statistical Account of Scotland (OSA), compiled between 1791 and 1799, and the New Statistical Account of Scotland (NSA), compiled between 1832 and 1845, are especially helpful for understanding Scottish society of the period. These can be consulted in major libraries, such as the National Library of Scotland, or online. In the late 18th century, the regional economy was based on farming, textiles, and mining. The existence of iron and coal enabled industrialization to occur relatively early. Coalmining rapidly expanded due to domestic demand and industrial expansion, especially the adoption of the Bolton and Watt steam engines in Scottish textile mills. Supplies of flax were imported from the Baltic, and the linen manufactured became an important export for Central Scotland. The nearly simultaneous Agricultural Revolution caused the merging of small farms, creating a rural labor surplus that either moved to the burgeoning factory towns in the Lowlands or emigrated.

This book identifies the people resident in Glasgow and in neighboring Clydesdale (alias Lanarkshire), as well as persons abroad who originated in these locations, during the first half of the 19th century. The information derives from a wide range of sources such as court records, contemporary newspapers and journals, monumental inscriptions, and documents found in archives. The entries bring together emigrants, their origins, and destinations"""especially in North America, the West Indies, and Australasia"""with their kin who remained in Scotland. The best sources for those researchers with their roots in or around Glasgow are two Family History Societies: the Glasgow and West of Scotland FHS and the Lanarkshire FHS. The best single genealogy library in the area is the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, which claims to be one of the largest reference libraries in Europe. By 1800, the economy of Glasgow, already dependent on transatlantic trade, had begun to industrialize. Capital increasingly was invested in collieries and iron mines, engineering, shipbuilding, and textile factories to produce goods for export. The burgeoning population of Glasgow, partly stemming from immigrants from the West Highlands and from Ireland, also caused an expansion of agriculture along the Clyde Valley. The expanding population, however, gave rise to poverty, social unrest, and the spread of diseases such as typhus and cholera, which in turn fueled emigration to North America, the West Indies, and Australasia. Glasgow's skilled, white-collar work force was in demand abroad, especially in the rapidly industrializing United States, thus also contributing to emigration for this more affluent economic class.

From the medieval period until the Victorian era, Aberdeen was comprised of two separate burghs, Old Aberdeen and New Aberdeen. Old Aberdeen was centered on St. Machar's Cathedral when King David I established a new bishopric there around 1125. New Aberdeen, a burgh since 1214, was an important regional market town and port. The two burghs in Aberdeen each had their own burgh council, burgess roll, court, college, and other institutions that maintained their own records. The two burghs merged in the mid-19th century to establish a unified city. Aberdeen became the major city in north-east Scotland, with its economy based on industries such as shipbuilding, whaling, herring fishing, woolens such as stocking-making, and papermaking.This book contains references to people from Aberdeen at home and abroad between 1800 and 1850. The entries bring together emigrants, their destinations, especially in North America, the West Indies, and Australasia, with their kin who remained in Scotland. The information is derived from a wide range of sources such as court records, contemporary newspapers and journals, monumental inscriptions, and documents found in archives. The Statistical Report of Scotland (OSA), compiled between 1791 and 1799, and the New Statistical Report, conducted between 1832 and 1845, are especially helpful for understanding the rapid changes in Scottish society brought about by the agricultural and industrial revolutions during this period. This work should enable researchers with roots in Aberdeen to put their family into a historical context.

This is part of a series of books by David Dobson designed to identify the origins of Scottish Highlanders who traveled to America prior to the Great Highland Migration that began in the 1730s and intensified thereafter. This volume is the second to cover the Northern Highlands, an area that includes the counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Cromarty. While this volume is not a comprehensive directory of all people living in the Northern Highlands during the mid-18th century, it does pull together references to more than 2,100 18th-century inhabitants. In all cases, Dr. Dobson gives each Highlander's name, a place name or county within the Highlands, a date (of birth, residence, etc.), and the source. In the majority of cases, we also learn the identities of relatives, the individual's employment, vessel traveled, or other defining characteristic.

For the concluding volume in this series (Part One was published in 2000), Mr. Dobson examined scores of Scottish primary and secondary sources before producing a list of 1,000 additional Scots who settled in the Baltic (Part One identifi ed 2,500). Arranged alphabetically, entries furnish the individual's name with variants, a place of residence in Eastern Europe, the date of the record, and its source. Given the widely disparate character of the subject matter, one may also fi nd a reference to the individual's place of origin in Scotland, occupation, relationships to other persons named (i.e., parent, spouse, offspring), membership in a fraternal organization, etc. A significant feature of Part Two is the inclusion of verbatim transcriptions of documents that illustrate the kinds of sources that are available to researchers.

Scottish Quarter Session records now available at the National Archives of Scotland (NAS) in Edinburgh, other original sources newly found at the NAS, and contemporary documents located in England, Holland, the U.S., and Canada comprise the basis for "More Scottish Settlers, 1667-1827", a sequel to Mr. Dobson's seven-volume series, "Directory of Scottish Settlers." Information given for the two thousand emigrants listed alphabetically in this volume includes traveler's full name, a place of origin in Scotland, one or more associated dates, occupation, destination, and source of information.