Scottish Highlanders on the Eve of the Great Migration, 1725-1775

The Hebrides are those islands lying off the coast of the Western Highlands of Scotland. They form parts of the counties of Ross and Cromarty, Inverness, and Argyll, and contain thirty-six parishes. Genealogical research in this region can be challenging because the parish registers, which are the backbone of Scottish genealogical research, only exist for about a quarter of the Hebridean parishes before 1800--and then only for Presbyterian ones. Such alternative sources as do exist include court records, estate papers, wills and testaments, services of heirs, registers of sasines, registers of deeds, port books, rent rolls, tax records, monumental inscriptions, and published works--on both sides of the Atlantic--and they comprise the basis for David Dobson's second volume of Hebridean source records. In all of the roughly 1,500 completely new entries for Volume 2, Dobson identifies a Hebridean by name, location, occupation, date, and source. In many instances the records also indicate an individual's kinsmen, intention to emigrate, military service, and other valuable characteristics.