A major release from ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) for those with ancestors in the Highlands and Islands:
Find your ancestors in the Highlands and Islands
Extraordinary records of Victorian crofting life are available to search online for the first time. They offer exciting new clues for your family history search.
The new records list over 16,000 crofters and cottars on Scotland’s estates across the Highlands and Islands.
They were collected for the 1883 Napier Commission, a public inquiry set up to investigate crofters’ claims of unfair treatment by landlords.
Following the Highland Clearances, the records reveal how people survived and maintained traditional ways of life tied to the land.
Discover fascinating details such as household names, extent of land, rents and animals kept. The records also reveal how families made a living through seasonal work like weaving and gathering whelks.
As those who attended my recent talk on "Gaelic Scotland for Family Historians" will have heard, the Napier Commission, which started in 1883, was officially known as The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands), with the published returns freely accessible via www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/centre-for-history/research/resources/the-napier-commission/.
The collection on ScotlandsPeople is oddly located under the Poor relief and migration records category (surely this needs to be renamed?!), and entitled Crofters and Cottars (Napier Commission). To view a record via the search box will cost 2 credits per return - although the records can also be browsed freely via the site's Virtual Volumes function. When using the search box, the More Info button will show brief details for a candidate, before you decide to purchase, to make sure you have the right person.
There are three detailed collections available within the set:
- AF50/6: Returns by proprietors or factors of estates in the counties of Argyll, Caithness, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, and Sutherland giving: rentals and areas of deer forest, farms, crofters' holdings, shootings, fishings and house property for the years 1853 and 1883.
- AF50/7: Returns by proprietors or factors of estates in the county of Argyll respecting crofters and cottars. These include information such as the names of crofters/cottars, the number of families and dwellings, their rent, obligations in labour or service, the extent of holdings, arable, pasture and stock.
- AF50/8: Returns by proprietors or factors of estates in the counties of Argyll, Caithness, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, and Sutherland giving: names of cottars, whether they are resident on a croft or not, what their rent was and who it was paid to, and their occupation or other means of subsistence.
A detailed guide on the records is available at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/help-and-support/guides/napier-commission.
To search the records visit https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/search-records/poor_relief/napier_commission.
The significance of the Napier Commission to history is that three years later, in 1886, the first Crofting Act came into being, effectively ending the Highland Clearances (Na Fuadaichean) by giving tenants security of tenure. For the family historian, they provide detailed insights into ancestors, as well as another effective census substitute.
10/10 to ScotlandsPeople for this one - happy hunting!
(With thanks to ScotlandsPeople via email)
Chris
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