Hebrides People site goes live

The new Hebrides People website, which I briefly announced a couple of weeks ago, has now gone live at www.hebridespeople.com.

The searchable databases, the results of years of resource gathering by Bill Lawson, are not live on the site just yet, but will be very shortly, with the first major set of records to be an emigration database. There is however, plenty to be getting on with, until then! To sum up the potential of this site, in due course I suspect this is going to become the 'ScotlandsPeople of the Western Isles', and in addition to the searchable databases planned for launch very soon there are already several background resources pages hosted, discussing the unique problems of researching family history in the islands where Gaelic has predominantly been the main language of the people, but English the language of the most recent records.

There are articles discussing the problems caused with this in registering names in records, the use of oral tradition in the islands to recall pedigrees, a handy timeline at www.hebridespeople.com/history/timelines/, and an extensive bookshop, including a very useful Genealogical Sourcebooks page listing publications by Bill at www.hebridespeople.com/publications/bill-lawson-publications/genealogical-sourcebooks. This includes various books listing marriages in parishes from the islands between 1820-55, both those recorded and unrecorded, and a register of Western Isles emigrants to the counties of Bruce, Grey and Huron in Ontario, Canada amongst other publications. I've already ordered a source book on doing research for families with Harris based connections, and there is plenty of other material also listed from the Islands Books Trust and more.

The Lawsons run the Co Leis Thu? research service in Northton, Harris, with details on this also contained on the site.

The emigration database will launch in the very near future, more details in due course! (And do sign up for the newsletter!)

(With thanks to Chris Lawson)

UPDATE: Separate to the Hebrides Emigrants database, the first island to have information hosted will likely be Harris, with regular additions on a monthly basis thereafter.

Chris