Sutherland nominal data spreadsheets

The spreadsheets below are the data which I collected in my own family research in the 1990s and subsequently used in an Open University course on Family and Community History . At the time I used Dishdata, a data entry package from Glasgow University. The text output by Dishdata was fed into Dbase (If you're old enough, you may remember the days before wall-to-wall Microsoft). I have converted my dbase files into Excel (98,2000,xp version for people withour Office 2007 or 2010). The spreadsheets can also be read by the free product Open Office calc.

As a lot of my research was carried out using the microfilm facilities of the local Mormon church, I agreed to extend the work I did on the 1851 censuses to the whole of Sutherland for their records. I seem to have lost Assynt (44), Clyne (45), Creich (46), Dornoch (47), Durness (48) and Tongue (56)! If they turn up I will post them here. My primary interest was in Loth and Kildonan. My MacLeod and Polson ancestors lived in the strath of Kildonan and were cleared to Helmsdale in 1813. Hence the preponderance of material for Loth and Kildonan. The OPR data tails off significantly after 1843 due to the disruption of the Church of Scotland. Almost the entire crofter population left the established Church of Scotland and joined the Free Church. Unfortunately I was unable to find any Free Church birth & marriage records for the parishes.

The poor roll is included because my great great grandparents required out-relief when the railway reached Helmsdale in 1870. Alexander MacLeod was a shoemaker and must have made a reasonable living at his trade, sufficient to keep his two sons and four daughters. The railway brought cheap mass-produced shoes and other goods from the South. Until the last of his children left school Alexander and Ann needed outdoor poor relief as did the two other shoemakers in the parish and the tailors. This stimulated my interest in the operation of the poor relief system. click here for the paper I wrote on the subject.

Finally, as part of my research into the 1745 rising, I found that the Earl of Sutherland conducted a census of all the able-bodied men in the parish between 16 and 60 and able to bear arms. There were 2174 men listed from gentry to cottars. Out of these he raised six companies of militia for Government anti-Jacobite service. Along with some other militia companies under Lord Loudon, two of Sutherland's companies were at Culloden but took no active part in the battle. As a postscript to this, the Earl of Sutherland tried unsuccessfully for a number of years to recover his expenses from the Government. Some years later they actually gave a grant of land in America (I recall it could have been the eventual state of Delaware) - forgetting that it had been granted to another. This caused the Earl to spend a considerable amount of money on an unsucessful legal bid to obtain the lands he had been granted.

Download 1851 census for Eddrachillis - enumeration district 49

Download 1851 census for Farr - enumeration district 50

Download 1851 census for Golspie - enumeration district 51

Download 1851 census for Kildonan - enumeration district 52

Download 1851 census for Lairg - enumeration district 53

Download 1851 census for Loth - enumeration district 54

Download 1851 census for Rogart - enumeration district 55

Kildonan & Loth marriages 1790 to 1854

Kildonan & Loth births 1791 to 1854

Kildonan deaths 1855 to 1864

Kildonan poor roll 1868 to 1870

Payments to Kildonan paupers 1868 to 1914