Finding proof in less obvious places

I was working on a family of sisters who lived with their aunt in the 1841 and 1851 census, which I believed to be as a result of the fact that their mother had died.

1851 Census

Name of Streem Place, or Road, and Name or No. of House	Name and Surname of each Person who abode in the house, on the Night of the 30th March, 1851	Relation to Head of Family	Condition	Age of		Rank, Profession, or Occupation
				Males	Females
Snaburgh	Willamina Spence	Head	W.		50	Crofter
	James       Do	Son	U	28		Mason’s server
	Thomas A. Do	Son	U	21		Do
	Agnes Henderson	Niece	U		22	Generally Useful
	Joan          Do	Niece	U		21	Do
	Jane M.     Do	Niece	U		18	Do

Their father wasn’t with them in any of the census, because even in 1841, the earliest census we can use, they were already with their aunt and uncle.

I know their parents because Jane, the youngest sister, died in 1864 and so I had the parents names from there.

No.	Name and Surname. Rank or Profession, and whether Single, Married, or Widowed.	When and Where Died.	Sex.	Age.	Name, Surname, & Rank or Profession, of Father. Name, and Maiden Surname of Mother.	Signature & Qualification of Informant, and Residence, if out of the House in which the Death occurred.
16	Jane Margaret Henderson Domestic Servant (Single)	1864 July seventeenth 1h am Snabrough, Parish of Unst	F	31 years	Henry Henderson Fisherman Ursula Henderson M.S. Sinclair (deceased)	Peter Henderson Brother (present)

Here we see that her mother is already deceased. I have a suspicion that her father, Henry Henderson is the same man as I have in another family. He was married at quite an advanced age (compared to average) and this makes me think that perhaps he was widowed and then remarried.

The fact that the informant on Jane’s death record is someone called Peter Henderson and is listed as her brother gives me a very strong suggestion that this is the same father because with his new wife, he has a son Peter. This would actually be Jane’s half-brother, but I don’t think that distinction was so important back in those days.

Normally, you might find some of the family together in census records to help prove these relationship, but the daughters are all living with their aunt – their mother’s sister, so that doesn’t help to figure out who the father is.

The two marriage records that one might use to see if they are the same man, are both pre-1855 and so I expect them to have very sparse amounts of information. I have the transcriptions from Ancestry, and hadn’t looked at the images as I didn’t expect to gain anything. However, I decide perhaps now is the time to do that.

1822	Contracts of Marriage
Nov 23	Henry Henderson in Failzie & Ursula Sinclair in Houlnon were married by the Rev. James Ingram 28 Inst. before these Witnesses Laurence Lamb, Houlnon.

1842,43	Contracts of Marriage
Dec 22	Henry Henderson, Widower in Valend & Margaret Pennant, Vinstrick were married by the Rev. James Ingram. Andrew Pennant, Belmont, Roger Gray, Hammer of Lund, Witnesses.

And there it is! One word which helps prove it all, “Widower”.

So the proof to join these two families together knowing now that the father Henry Henderson was the same man in both cases came from two unusual places; an informants name and relationship; and some actual useful information from an Old Parish Marriage record.

Another unusual middle name

I’ve written before about where interesting middle names come from.

• Some come from the local minister
• Some come from the local doctor

Another gentleman I’ve written about before, William Parsonson Anderson, has a – very helpfully – unusual middle name. I was chatting to a cousin today about naming conventions and the like, and he came up, and I had entirely forgotten that I did actually know where his name came from, so to stop me forgetting again, I thought I would make a small post about that too. One more for the unusual names set!

It’s quite simple, and just like an earlier example, as it appears that he was named after the minister who baptised him. It also illustrates a good reason to view the original records rather than just the transcriptions provided by various genealogy websites.

Here’s the transcription from Ancestry:-

Name:	William Parsonson Anderson
Gender:	Male
Age:	0
Birth Date:	11 Nov 1847
Baptism Date:	21 Nov 1847
Baptism Place:	Unst,Shetland,Scotland
Father:	William Anderson
Mother:	Charlotte Russel

And here’s my own transcription from seeing the original record.

1847	Register of Births
No 37 21 Dec 1854	William Anderson & Charlotte Russel in Trohall had a lawful Son born 11 Novr. Bapt 21 Nov in Methodist Chapel by Revd William Parsonson named William Parsonson.

The other thing to note here, is that, although this record is on a page with heading 1847, the date this record says it was registered is 21 Dec 1854. Does this mean that the baptism was registered exactly 7 years and 1 month after it happened? Or is this more likely to be a scribe error. This is from a volume that was a “Copy or Duplicate” of the original register. It is possible that in making the copy, they tried to re-order some out of order entries and in the process messed up the dates?

The original volume has a gap from near the end of 1849 (last entry is October) and then the next page starts in 1854. There is no sign of this baptism entry in the original volume, either in the pages for 1847, or in the pages from 1854 onwards. From census records I know William to have been born before 1851, so the 1854 date is clearly rubbish. He is aged 1 in the 1851 census, suggesting a birth year of late 1849 (given I believe the day and month, just not the year from the above record). And in fact, his age is consistent in every single census entry up to, and including, 1911. This would put him squarely on the missing page in the original register. So I’m inclined to think he was born on 11 November 1849. However, it is rather hard to prove!

Once upon a time

Once upon a time, on a faraway island,

There lived two little girls.

They were safe on their little island,

And could explore and roam the hills and shore.

There were very few cars in those days, so they walked everywhere.

One day, they walked with their mother

As they often did, across the island to visit their grandad.

While their mother talked with her family,

They would roam about the croft, explore and play.

Sometimes, they were allowed

To climb the stairway to the upper rooms.

There, in their grandaunts room,

Under the sloping coomb ceilings,

Were the kists (wooden chests).

Lifting the lid of a kist, they found her hats,

Chapel hats, black or navy blue, and try them on.

Finally, when the visit was over, they would set out to walk the long 4 mile walk home.

Past the fields with sheep, stopping next to talk to the Shetland ponies,

Looking out for seals on the rocks along the shore.

Then, they came to the long steep slope of wearisome hill,

Daunting to their tired little legs.

But then, the sound of something approaching.

Was it a knight in shining armour?

Was it a hero with a carriage and horses?

No., it was a wee Glaswegian fellow,

From the local air force station, in a land rover.

“Wid ye like a lift hen?” he asked their mother.

They were convulsed with laughter at the idea of their mother being addressed as “hen”.

But oh, they were mightily glad of the hero, in unlikely guise,

In his land rover, giving them a lift home.

Tracking Joan Anderson

I’ve done quite a lot of research of families in Unst, but I have not yet spent time researching the branches that left Unst and went out into the new world to places like New Zealand. I had the opportunity to look into one of these today. It was prompted by a New Zealand cousin getting in touch via a Facebook group.

From my Unst research, I only knew about two of Gilbert and Anne’s children

I knew of her great-grandfather Gilbert Anderson because he was born in Unst. He and his wife and two daughters were marked in my tree as having gone to NZ but I hadn’t looked into it further. From my Unst research, I just knew the family looked as the tree shown on the right.

Her grandfather William was born in 1878 in New Zealand. Looking in the Bayanne site, there was also another sibling, Joan, that was in Bayanne as having been born in New Zealand also in 1878. I have been learning more about doing New Zealand research since I live in New Zealand now, and volunteer at the library to help out people doing their genealogy. So I decided to try out my new found NZ research skills and see if I could find both William and Joan in NZ Historical BDMs. I found William Anderson, born 30 Oct 1878 to Gilbert and Ann, but no sign of Joan.

One of the other resources that I had learned about but not really made use of yet, was travel records. I had filed away in my head that I would at some stage try and find all the travel records for Unst families who left and went elsewhere. So I tried that out today with this family. FamilySearch has lots of travel records, so that’s where I looked, and I found Gilbert and his family. They came over with Assisted Emigration on the ship Howrah leaving from Gravesend on 29th July 1876. Here they are:-

Gilbert Anderson and his family on the passenger list of the Howrah. Here we see Joan as an infant.

As you can see, Joan is listed as an 8-month old infant in this passenger list. So clearly she was not born in New Zealand, but was born before they set off. However, I was 100% certain that she was not born in Unst. So where was she born? Next step was to use the free index in Scotland’s People, to see how many possibilities there were. This gleans a short list of four possibilities.

The Scotland’s People results for Joan

I considered that the Leith result in this list was the most likely record since I know lots of Unst families went to Leith, and it seemed a common staging post on the way to boarding a boat to the new world, so I decided to purchase the record, and indeed that is her. She was born 23 Jul 1875 (so in fact she has just turned 1 year old when she leaves on the Howrah), to parents Gilbert Anderson, Firewood Merchant, and Ann Anderson M.S. Johnson, with a marriage on 1867, Nov 1st Unst, Shetland (correct date, wrong year, they were actually married in 1866 on 1st Nov). Still, it is definitely the correct family, they just don’t appear to be very good with dates!!

So, now I have a slightly updated view of this family and their children.

Gilbert Anderson and his family in New Zealand

P.S. I have submitted suggestions to the Bayanne site to correct Joan’s Birthdate and Birthplace, and to correct William’s birth month.

P.P.S. Gilbert Anderson was a brother to William Parsonson Anderson that I wrote about here.

Three Generations of Weddings

A wedding in the 1900s

My grandparents were married in 1908, and there are no photos from their wedding, but here are their photos.

Robert (Robbie) Anderson

Robina Anderson nee Sutherland

Robert lived with his parents in Uphouse, the family croft house. My mother talked about what she had heard about her parents wedding. She remembered that they cleared all the furniture out of the house (a small two room Shetland croft house) into the barn. They left the sturdy kitchen dresser for the fiddler to sit on!

The wedding took place in the nearby chapel and the guests would then walk down to the reception in the house. Looking at the bill from the local shop, it seems that they paid a lot for the wedding. Given that the house was so small, I wonder if folk from the community stayed briefly for a dram of whiskey and then left. There were certainly big amounts of whisky used at the event!

The wedding bill

Family and close friends would maybe then stay on and be fed and dance to the fiddle tunes.

A wedding in the 1940s

Mary and John Gray

My mother’s wedding took place in the same chapel, from the same house, Uphouse in Clibberswick, in the Haroldswick area of Unst. They were able to use a barn owned by relatives, and have tables set for folk to be fed. Since she was trained as a cook by this time, I am sure she had a hand in the catering for the wedding reception.

A wedding in the 1970s

Alastair and Rhoda Hughson

My wedding reception was held, as was the custom 50 years ago in Unst, at the local community hall. The venue was booked, trestle tables and benches for seating were set up. The bride went round and asked various ladies to be hostesses. These ladies came to the hall the evening before the wedding bringing enough crockery and cutlery for a table of 10 or 12 people. They set the table with white tablecloths, their fine crockery, and plates and cake stands. They were given flour and asked to make bannocks. The bride’s family supplied the meat, salad etc, and home bakes. My mother, a neighbour and I did home bakes for the 100 guests.

After the wedding in the local church, the guests gathered and were fed, then the tables were cleared away and the dancing began with a band of musicians playing on fiddle and accordion. As always, it started with the bridal march.

So, that was three generations of weddings in our family. Customs change and evolve with each generation doing things slightly differently, and so it will continue!

Gold Miner in New Zealand

One cousin in my tree, William Parsonson Anderson, I had no idea where he was during the 1871 census. A timeline for him simply had a gap. Then today, when I brought up one of the records I had already attached to him in Ancestry, there was a suggested record for the same name in New Zealand.

His name is somewhat unusual. Parsonson is not a common Unst name. He appears to have been named after the minister who baptised him who was called William Parsonson. This combination of names therefore make you feel it is likely to be the same person when you find another record with the same name.

Before today, I knew when he was born, and had found him in the 1851, 1861 and 1881 census. I also know that he got married in 1878 in Unst, and his occupation on the marriage record is stated as Goldminer. Although married in 1878, unusually, their first child was not born until 1883.

So my questions about him were:-

• Where was he in 1871?
• Why did this couple not have children for 5 years after being married?

I found a man with the same name living in Sowburn, Otago in New Zealand, recorded as a miner, in an 1880 Electoral roll, and also in the same region in 1871. If this is the same man as my Unst-born cousin, it would answer both the above questions with “he was in New Zealand”. It would also suggest that he went to New Zealand sometime between 1861 and 1871; came back before 1878 and got married; went out again after that; and came back again before 1881 – possibly before, or because, his father died in late 1880.

Sowburn, Otago is now called Patearoa. It is a small settlement in the heart of the Maniototo Plain that is a rural farming community that has links going back to a gold rush in the 1860’s. The location he lived in New Zealand and the occupations listed on various records, suggest he went to New Zealand for the gold rush.

Also, he is one of the few people in my Unst tree from this era that had a will. When he died in 1918, he left his wife £573. 12s. 5d. suggesting he was successful in his foray in gold mining.

Unst Population Changes

I was recently asked how the population of the island of Unst has changed over time, and since I couldn’t find a place online which pulled together all the numbers, I thought I would write it myself.

These numbers come from a variety of sources. Open the twisty below to see the data and the sources.

Unst Population numbers and Sources

Year	Population Total	Source
1755	1368	Webster’s Census (see page 113 of the PDF)
1780	1853	Statistical Accounts of Scotland, OSA, Vol V, 1793
1790 or 91	1988	Statistical Accounts of Scotland, OSA, Vol V, 1793 and NSA, Vol XV, 1845
1801	2259	1884-1885 – Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6
1831	2909	Statistical Accounts of Scotland, NSA, Vol XV, 1845, and 1884-1885 – Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6
1841	2828	Totals from 9 x Census Enumeration booklet summary pages
1851	2976	Totals from 9 x Census Enumeration booklet summary pages
1861	3060	Totals from individual census pages, as no summary pages, and 1884-1885 – Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6
1871	2780	Totals from individual census pages, as no summary pages, and 1884-1885 – Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6
1881	2181	Totals from 5 x Census Enumeration booklet summary pages, and 1884-1885 – Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6
1891	2014 (+ 225 people in Herring Fishing Stations)	Totals from 5 x Census Enumeration booklet summary pages
1901	1867	Totals from 5 x Census Enumeration booklet summary pages
1911	1828	Totals from 5 x Census Enumeration booklet summary pages
1921	1568	Reduction from 1911 detailed in Preliminary Report of the thirteenth Census of Scotland 1921 [*]
1931	1341	A Vision of Britain through time [*]
1951	1112	A Vision of Britain through time [*]
1961	1148 or 1151	Gazetteer for Scotland and A Vision of Britain through time [*]
1971	1124	Gazetteer for Scotland
1981	1140	Gazetteer for Scotland
1991	1055	Scotland’s Census 1991 – National Records of Scotland via Scotland’s Census website
2001	720	Statistical Bulletin on 2011 Census
2011	632	Statistical Bulletin on 2011 Census

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[*] This work is based on data provided through www.VisionofBritain.org.uk and uses historical material which is copyright of the Great Britain Historical GIS Project and the University of Portsmouth

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The lower numbers in the early years in the graph are attributed, in the Statistical Accounts of 1845, to two bouts of small pox.

In 1729, and again in 1740, the small-pox appears in Zetland in such a virulent form, and made such havock, almost depopulating some districts, that they are yet spoken of under the name of the mortal pox. Accordingly, we find, that, subsequent to that time, the population was very low; for, in the year 1755, it consisted only of 1368 souls. From that period, the increase has been steady and rapid.

Vaccination, which has been resorted to ever since the year 1800, may be assigned as one cause of this great increase. Another cause may be found in the very favourable seasons this country has enjoyed during the last thirty years. There has been no failure of crops; the fishing has been successful; and trade has greatly improved.

and in the earlier Statistical Accounts of 1793, a similar comment is made against the population numbers.

If the numbers have increased, however, within these last 30 or 40 years, it is owing chiefly to the introduction of inoculation for the small pox. For more than 100 years past, this epidemical distemper used to visit the island nearly every 20 years, and to carry off, with the rage of a pestilence, great numbers of all ages. In 1770, inoculation became general here among all ranks. In 1783, a general inoculation was repeated through the parish with the most flattering success.

In the years 1740, 1766, and 1783, excessive scarcity was felt here. But even in those periods of famine, none are known to have absolutely died for want.

The steep decline seen after the 1861 census peak is as a result of large numbers leaving. This was due to a number of factors, but evictions of tenants from crofts to create larger sheep farms was one factor; also the pull of the new world, such as New Zealand, (a very large Shetland population went to New Zealand), Australia, Canada and the United States. This article, “Finding a place”, will be of interest to anyone curious about emigration patterns. My own great-great-grandmother was evicted from their croft at Clugan as I wrote about before.

The population of Unst received a boost from 1957 through to 2006 when the RAF Saxa Ford radar station was installed and manned. At the height of the Cold War, more than 300 personnel were based at Saxa Vord, with hundreds of knock-on jobs for islanders.

The next census will be taken in 2022. I wonder what the population count will be then. Will the Unst Space Station make a similar change to the population that the RAF base did in earlier decades?

Euphemia Betsy Hughson

Euphemia Betsy Hughson was my husband’s grand-aunt, and Morag’s great-grand-aunt. She was born in 1875. The family refer to her as Aunty Phemie.

Auntie Phemie

Her family lived in Colvadale, now an abandoned area (on the island of Unst in Shetland), father John Hughson, mother Jemima (nee Johnson). The family home was Gardin, Colvadale.

Map of Colvadale
Click on the map to go to the zoom-able version on the NLS website.
This view is spread across three maps, click on quadrant to go to the full view of the appropriate map.

View from Gardin Colvadale Photo by Morag Hughson, taken 2012

Vod House: Gardin, Colvadale Photo by Morag Hughson, taken 2012

They were a large family, sisters Jemima and Robina and brothers James, Arthur, Thomas and John Henry.

John and Jemima Hughson’s Children

In the 1891 census Aunty Phemie was detailed as a knitter – (mostly the occupations for women on the census were knitter or spinner).

Her father John, was skipper of a sixareen. Read a story about him here.

In the 1911 census Euphemia was still living at home and detailed as a knitter. The household, as normal in those days, was large.

By this time her father, John Hughson had died (in 1909) and her mother Jemima was listed as head of the household, which included three daughters (knitters) and a son (working on the croft) as well as a six grand children and a elderly boarder.

1911 Census

ROAD, STREET, &c., and No. or NAME of HOUSE.	NAME and Surname of each Person.	RELATION to Head of Family	AGE (last Birthday) and Sex.		CONDITION as to Marriage	PROFESSION or OCCUPATION.
			Males	Females		Personal Occupation	Employer, Worker, or on Own Account	If Working at Home.
Colvadale	Jemima Hughson	Head		73	W	Knitter	On own account	at home
	Jemima Spence	Daur		43	W	Do	Do	Do
	Euphemia Hughson	Daur		35	S	Do	Do	Do
	Robina Hughson	Daur		32	S	Do	Do	Do
	John H Hughson	Son	26		S	Crofter	Do	Do
	John T Hughson	Grand Son	16		S	Working on Croft	Worker
	Jemima J Spence	Grand daur		10		School
	John A Spence	Grand Son	6			Do
	James Hughson	Grand Son	4
	Tamar Williamson	Boarder		85	S
	John W Hughson	Grand Son	18		S	Fisherman	Own account
	Peter J Hughson	Grand Son	17		S	Do	Own account

They would have a struggle to make ends meet.

Croft details Colvadale

This document shows the croft details from her father’s time at age 51. A cow, a calf and three sheep were the extent of their croft animals.  His main source of income was fishing, and if it was not a good year at the fishing, they would fall behind on rent payment etc. Notice that they were in arrears to the tune of £22 which was several years-worth in arrears.

There is a saying about Orkney and Shetland, that Orkney men are farmers with a boat, and Shetland men are fishermen with a bit of land.

John Hughson obviously depended on the fishing to make a living, and if there were some bad years for the fishing, then it was very hard for the family.

Euphemia Betsy Hughson married Andrew Thomas Cluness in Colvadale, on 7 December 1916 when she was 41 years old. They were married for 26 years before he died age 75.

As an older lady, having lived for so many years in Colvadale which was in quite an isolated part of Unst, she moved to “Westerhoose”, Muness and lived there for some time.

Later she moved to the centre of Uyeasound to a smaller house at Hays Place.

This was originally accommodation for workers in the Herring Fishing times, and later was rented by a variety of folk.

Robert Hughson (my husband’s brother) can remember her “flittin” (moving house). He thinks he would have been 4 years old at the time, so that is about the mid-1940s. He recalled two boats being taken round from Uyeasound to Muness, one with a motor, the other sail.

“There was a fine big stone that we could take the boat in alongside at Muness.

The furniture and bits and pieces were taken from “Westerhoose” to the shore by gig, loaded onto the boats and taken round by sea to the pier at Hays Place, Uyeasound.

Then everything had to be taken in a hurl (wheelbarrow) up to the house and put in place for her in her new home.”

She lived there for some years before she died in 1969 age 84.

Knitting superstition

In my old Shetland dictionary, “A glossary of the Shetland dialect” by James Stout Angus, the word Amos appears.

Amos, a noun, is explained as “a dole promised to some indigent person on condition that some hoped for good comes to the person who promises.”

An amos boddie: a person deserving of charity; a person capable of winning an amos.

“To lay on an amos” means to promise an amos or reward.

I wonder if it originally came from, or is connected to the word “alms”, and originally was a way of giving something to a person in need of charity while allowing them to keep their dignity.

An elderly friend, a keen knitter, used to give me a gift if I had come upon her starting a piece of knitting and it turned out well. She was born during WW1 and like Shetlanders from that time, always had a knitting project on the go.

Starting a piece of knitting

Chrissie, who was full of old superstitions, used the old superstition to “laid on amos” on knitting projects

She would suddenly appear with a packet of tea, or biscuits. When I asked why, she would say “you were a good amos on my knitting” (in fact that she had laid on an amos on her project and found I had brought it luck.)

Certain people were thought to be lucky in this respect. You weren’t meant to tell of the amos till the project was finished.

Recently on a local (Shetland) social media site concerned with dialect words, I asked if anyone still “laid on an amos”. I was rather astonished to find that many people still did, as well as remembering the previous generation doing it. Someone mentioned a niece getting a “peerie hansel” (small gift) often when a project went well.

It is interesting how these customs linger on, and it also make me wonder where it all started.

Finding locations for old houses

If your ancestors lived rurally, it is possible that the house they lived in is no longer occupied, or even standing. This is certainly the case for many of the houses mentioned on census in Unst, where the old croft houses are “vod”, that is unoccupied, as Rhoda wrote about here. If you see a house name on a census, how can you find where it is now?

Let’s look at an example, Ed Johnson and his family living in Watquoy – here from the 1881 census (ED2 Page 11).

1881 Census

ROAD, STREET, &c., and No. or NAME of HOUSE.	NAME and Surname of each Person.	RELATION to Head of Family	CONDITION as to Marriage.	AGE [last birthday]		Rank, Profession, or OCCUPATION
				Males	Females
Watquoy	Edward Johnson	Head	Unm	43		Stone Mason, Crofter
	Janet Do	Sister	Do		47	Stocking Knitter
	Joan Do	Do	Do		45	Spinner of Wool
	Sinney Do	Do	Do		33	Invalid
	Andrina Sinclair	Serv.	Do		51	General Serv.

First thing to do is take note of the house names that neighbour the house you are looking for – to give you a few more names to find on a map. Watquoy has neighbours “Stove” and “Watquoy Brake”.

Each parish was broken down into enumeration districts to ensure that they covered an area that could be enumerated in a single day. The parish of Unst was broken into 5 enumeration districts (ED) in 1851 – 1911 (1841 it had 9 EDs). You can read the description of the ED from the header page of the census return booklet. Access to this page in Scotland’s People is free as described here.

The description for Enumeration District 2 in 1881 is as follows:-

So much of the Parish of Unst as lies between Houston and North-Dale, between North-Dale and Burrafirth, thernce southward to Houland, then to Petister. Comprehending – Houston, Gardie of Haroldswick, Houl, Roadside, Bothen, Mullapund, North Dale, North Fael, Supton, Ungerstae, Budigarth, Westergarth, Stove, Watquoy, Quoyhouse, Budabrake, Sandfield, School-house, Sotland or East Burrafirth, Biggershoul, West Burrafirth, including Lighthouse, Petister, Cathoul, Gardie of Baliasta, Houland.

With this information we can see that we are looking at the north-western end of the island. Now we get the maps out. I’ve written about the NLS Maps before, and we’re going to look at them again now.

Unst Graphic Index (North of island)

Using the graphic index I zoom in on the north end of Unst, and identify that I need to look at the sheets II.12, II.13, II.15 and 11.16. Each of these sheets can be selected from the Ordnance Survey Maps – 25 inch 1st edition, Scotland, 1855-1882.

I open each sheet in turn looking for the house names that I noted earlier, “Stove”, “Watquoy” itself, and “Watquoy Brake”. I spot “Watquoy Brake” on sheet II.12 near the south of the sheet, so I suspect the other two houses will be nearby and decide to open sheet II.15 next because it is south of sheet II.12 and sure enough there they both are.

Map showing the houses of Watquoy and Stove. Click on the map to go to the zoom-able version on the NLS website

Now we need to align that map with a modern day Google Map to get it’s geographic coordinates. This is the fiddly part. There may be tools out there that help, but the way I do it is to find the approximate area in Google Maps Satellite view, and then in my favourite layered paint program, take a screen grab of each map, lay one on top of the other and make the top one 50% transparent so that I can see through it. Then I resize and move the map until it lines up with the features that are on both maps. In this example there is a small quarry and various field boundaries that are clearly visible to line things up. Hopefully the animated gif below of my two layers will show what I mean.

Animated gif of two layers to find Watquoy

Now I know, by joining the two maps with transparent layers, exactly which building on the Google Maps Satellite view, is in the same location as the house on the old map. I go back to Google Maps and single click on that point in the map. Google will place a ‘pin’ on that location and at the bottom of the screen pop up a little banner that shows the longitude and latitude of that pin.

Place a pin and Google Maps will give you the longitude and latitude.

And that’s how I find the location of old houses on a map.