The Mother of All Conferences - The AHA 2012

Now is the time of year that historians and history graduate students begin planning to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. The 2012 meeting, which meets in Chicago January 5th - 8th, will be the 126th. Also meeting in Chicago at the same time will be several dozen affiliated societies. Altogether, this cavalcade of history will include 257 sessions of the AHA proper, countless sessions of the affiliated societies, over 1500 scholars presenting their work, and who knows how many search committees and interviewees.  I would estimate the Annual Meeting will attract over well over 2000 people.

I was excited by this year's theme, Communities and Networks, as it fits so closely with my own research interests. But I've just gone through the preliminary program and while I did find many interesting panels, I didn't find many that sounded like what I do. Translation - no papers on Scottish emigrants (heck, there aren't even any papers about Scotland that I could see*) or even emigrants from the Britain. But, of course, if someone were doing a paper on British emigrant networks in the late 18th century, I would have totally been upset and felt like they were encroaching on my territory; which is completely nuts because there are more than enough 18th century emigrants to go around.

I did find four panels relating to networks, identity or migration that might be of interest to readers of this blog; but with so many sessions, I probably missed some. There are also several panels about trade networks and communities, World History, digital history and teaching.

• Rethinking the Model Migrant: New Perspectives on Jewish Migration (Session 18)
• Avenues of Influence: Discourse Networks in Britain During the Age of Revolution (Session 20)
• Alien Natives?: Internal Migration and Dilemmas of Belonging in the United States and Europe (Session 123)
• Marriage, Communities and Boundaries: French and Indians in the Illinois Country (Session 240) 

The AHA is an experience not to be missed. I've gone three or four times and have always learned something and met interesting people.

*Update 30 Oct: There is one Scottish Session: Scottish Engagement with the British Empire in the Twentieth Century : From Celebration to Critique? (National History Center Session 5).  with thanks to @BritishScholar

Crafting My Heritage

Amanda's Tartan Quilt

I've been reading recently about how many Americans of European descent often pick and chose their ethnic or cultural affiliation. So many of us come from "mixed" backgrounds, that it is impossible to identify with them all. Most of these cultural groups then recreate or invent traditions associated with their chosen homelands in order to maintain connections with it. In effect, Americans craft their past.

In 1992, I literally crafted my past by creating the quilt pictured above. Some years previous, my mother had given me the tartan sample book from my grandfather's Scottish import shop. Why did I take them? I recognized immediately that the tartan samples were perfect quilt squares. The book, however, was big and bulky, so I ripped out all the squares and ended up with a tiny tower of tartan.

When I finally got around to making the quilt, I asked my dad how I should organize them. He said, "Alphabetically." "Great," I thought, "I don't remember what any of them are called." Luckily, I tripped across a copy of Tartans: Their Art and History by Ann Sutton and Richard Carr. My father and I then spent countless evenings matching up  squares with their pictures in the book, ticking them off one by one, slowly dismantling the tartan tower. Our matching project was reasonably successful and the tartans are all organized alphabetically until you get to the fourth row from the bottom. If you look closely in the fifth row from the bottom you will notice a Dress Royal Stewart square, the one immediately below it is the first unknown pattern.

I took the quilt with me when I went to graduate school in London, when I moved to Ohio from California, and when I went to Glasgow to pursue my Ph.D. Although in the latter case, it was a bit like taking coals to Newcastle. I love tartan, especially the bright, cheery red ones, like Royal Stewart. (Although, I know it can be used inappropriately: I've seen tartan carpeting. Ugh!) I love this quilt because of its connections not only with my grandfather and Scotland, but also my father. I've always wished I would trip across another unwanted book of tartan samples so I could make a second quilt. Though, nothing could ever be as special as this one: my heritage, personally crafted by me.

1000 Years of Scottish History in 600 minutes

In August, a friend wrote to tell me that A History of Scotland, presented by archaeologist Neil Oliver, was available for viewing on YouTube. It sounded good, so I investigated and found the show as individual portions and organized as a playlist, one of which is here. But sitting in front of my computer to watch all ten episodes didn't sound like any fun. I then found the DVD set on Amazon, but it was expensive, so I added it to my wish list. At this point I discovered that it was already on my wishlist. Evidently, I knew about it, but had forgotten.

Ultimately, I requested the DVD set through inter-library loan and watched all 600 minutes in about two and a half weeks. Do. Not. Do. This. The series is very good, visually stunning and probably worth buying; but if you watch all the episodes so close together all you will notice is that there is lots of dripping blood and lots of Neil Oliver looking over his shoulder talking to the camera while walking away from it.

I am not a specialist in all periods of Scottish History (and to be honest, who is?), so I can not really comment on the accuracy of each episode (which are listed here), but they seemed good to me. Like most history programs aimed at a general audience, The History of Scotland, did focus on the popular topics: Wars of Independence, the War of the Three Kingdoms, Reformation, the Jacobite Risings, and the Union. Oliver did on occasion contrast traditional views on a subject with newer ones. The one that sticks out in my mind is Robert the Bruce - usually seen as a hero, but perhaps really a man who was conflicted over the actions that made him a hero.

My specialization, emigration, was only lightly touched on in the last three episodes of series two. I suppose since emigration has been such a huge component of the Scottish experience since the late Middle Ages, it should have figured more prominently; but emigration is not as "cool" as things topics that involve dripping blood. Actually, the BBC could do a whole 600 minutes just on Scottish emigration (hint, hint).

I was disappointed in the treatment of Union. What Oliver presented was a very "bought and sold for English gold" view, but recent research has shown that the Union negotiations were far more nuanced (although there was plenty of money involved). I thought a popular program like this would have been a great opportunity to bring the work of scholars like Karin Bowie and Christopher Whatley to a wider audience, especially light of the current debate on Independence.

My favorite episode was The Price of Progress covering the second half of the eighteenth century. The focus of this program was the exportation of Scotland's people and ideas. I enjoyed this episode for two reasons: it was the closest to my particular interests and had very little, if any, dripping blood.

If you want to learn about Scotland without cracking the cover of a book, then this series would be an excellent place to start. If you teach Scottish or British history, many episodes, or even snippets of them, would be great to share with students. I'm quite sure many students will find the dripping of blood, chopping off of heads, and dangling of bodies much more entertaining than I did. In fact, it might be all they remember come exam time.

Happy Viewing!

Canada the Brave: 2 Books about Scots in Canada

If you are looking for something to read about Scots in Canada, you might try How the Scots Invented Canada by Ken McGoogan or How the Scots Created Canada by Matthew Shaw, both of which are mentioned in a review article by D. Grant Black here.

I've not read either book but based upon the review they sound a bit filiopietistic (roughly ancestor-loving; migration historians do not use this word in a positive sense). However, McGoogon's book has many mini-biographies which might mention an ancestor of yours and even if it doesn't it might provide context for your ancestor's experience in Canada. If you are writing a research paper of Scots in Canada or the Scottish Diaspora, this book might be a good source of examples.

If you've read them, share your thoughts in the comments section.

with thanks to Brenda

EmigranThursday - Takes a Break

Presbyterian Meeting House, Colonial Williamsburg

Unbeknownst to you, fair reader, after weeks of dithering, last night I reached a momentous decision: my weekly column, EmigranThursday, is going on hiatus. I enjoy researching and writing each one, but as this process takes at least three hours per week, I realized that I can not continue if I am to complete the many other projects on my plate. I anticipate that EmigranThursday will reappear, perhaps in the New Year, but as an occasional column as opposed to a weekly one.

In the meantime, I invite you to read about Alexander MacAuley on Melodee Beals blog, Demography and the Imperial Sphere. MacAuley was born in Glasgow in 1754 and died in Virginia in 1797 after having failed at every business venture he attempted. Despite his bad luck, he seems to have been amiable and a good friend to those who knew him. I imagine him as the sort of chap that was good to have at a party. Melodee's three part post on MacAuley, provides a much more in depth look at an individual than I ever did in EmigranThursday: Part I, Part II and Part III.

With Friends Like These ....

Between 1840 and 1843, Norman MacLeod, minister of St. Columba's, which served the many Gaels who migrated to Glasgow, published a magazine, Cuairtear nan Gleann. The sole purpose of the periodical was to provide information about emigration to a Gaelic-speaking audience. Sheila Kidd of the University of Glasgow analyzed MacLeod's publication in a 2002 article, "Caraid nan Gaidheal and 'Friend of Emigration': Gaelic Emigration Literature of the 1840s."

By the mid-19th century an increasing number of Gaels were becoming literate in Gaelic and English, so Gaelic publishing was a growth industry (in a manner of speaking). More importantly, emigration was a central topic in Scotland's national discourse; not unlike the current debate about immigration in the United States.

The Highlands had just emerged from a period of famine in the late 1830s and more and more landlords began to see emigration as the solution to their problems and those of their tenants. Kidd explains that MacLeod was often more a friend of emigration than a friend of the Gaels; meaning he probably thought it was a good idea for Gaels to leave Scotland rather than for them to oppose their landlords and eviction. Many of the articles that appeared in Cuairtear nan Gleann fall into three categories. First, that Highlanders should accept the situation passively. Second, emigration is framed in a spiritual context: the emigrant's journey is nothing compared to the final journey we must all face. Third, many articles promoted specific emigrant destinations and suggested that Highland communities in Australia, New Zealand or America really weren't that different from those in Scotland.

While MacLeod hoped to provide an honest forum of information for potential emigrants, most Highlanders who were determined to emigrate were probably influenced more by correspondence from friends and family members who had already emigrated than they were by a minister in Glasgow.

If you are a family historian, the article will provide insight to your ancestor's world because whether they stayed in Scotland or left, they were impacted by emigration. If you are a student writing a paper on Scottish emigration, this would be a good source on information available to potential emigrants and the general tenor of emigration rhetoric in Scotland during the 19th century. And, I speak from experience, instructors are always impressed when you use an academic article as a reference.

Dr. Kidd's article appeared in the April 2002 edition of the Scottish Historical Review  and is available through JSTOR or Academic Search Premier. You should be able to access it through a University Library or  large public library.

10/20/11: ADDITION- You can also access Dr. Kidd's article here via Enlighten, a database of research publications by University of Glasgow Staff. Thanks for the tip Peter!

5 Books on the Highland Clearances from James Hunter

James Hunter, author of Dance Called America and Director of the Centre for History at the University of the Highlands, participated in The Browser's FiveBook Interview. His top five books on the Highland Clearances are:

Highland Clearances by Eric Richards
Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances by Eric Richards
Adventurers and Exiles by Marjory Harper
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
From Ridge to Wood by Sorley MacLean

I've read Highland Clearances and Adventurers and Exiles and both were very good. In fact I used to own both of them until a student borrowed the latter and never returned it. (I don't lend books to students anymore as a result). 

Go here to read the interview and discover why he selected each volume.

EmigranThursday - John Chisholm

John Chisholm & neighbors, 1840

Welcome to this week’s EmigranThursday which features John Chisholm of Duncannon, Perry County, Pennsylvania. Biographical information about him appeared on page 560 of the History of Columbiana County Ohio by William B. McCord, published in 1905. Additional research was completed on Ancestry and FamilySearch.


John Chisholm's biography comprises the second paragraph of his grandson's biography in the McCord's History of Columbiana County. The grandson, Samuel Irwin Chisholm, was born in Salem, Columbiana County on September 25, 1841 to John P. and Elsie Bowker Chisholm.

• The paternal grandfather of Mr. Chisholm was John Chisholm, who was born in Scotland on the Bunchcrew farm, three miles from the city of Inverness, on May 4, 1763. He came alone to America in 1785 and opened up a carpenter and millwright business in Philadelphia, which he followed until 1808, when he moved to Duncannon, Perry County, Pennsylvania. There he built a great, stone grist-mill in 1812-13 and engaged in milling; in 1823 he bought a farm and thereafter operated both mill and farm. He died in 1842. When the British frigates approached Baltimore, in the second war with Great Britain, he served 40 days as an ensign in the militia in defense of the city. Grandfather Chisholm was married twice and he had six children by his first wife and seven by his second, who had two children by a former marriage, so that when the family gathered around the generous fireplace, the parents could count 15 children. As far as we know they all reached maturity and did well their parts in life.

Very little could be learned about John Chisholm from the usual sources. There was no record of him in Family Search and only census entries on Ancestry. According to the latter John was in Rye Township, Cumberland County, PA in 1810 with a household of 7. In the next census he was in Rye Township, Perry County (which had been created from Cumberland in 1820), with a household of 9. In 1830 his household of 9 was in Wheatfield Township and in 1840 his household of 11 was in Oliver Township. While it does appear that he moved around, the different townships might be due to the creation of new townships within the county.

I find three things about John Chisholm particularly interesting. First, he came to the United States in 1785, just a few short years after the end of the American Revolution. Conventional wisdom states that about 250,000 Europeans came to the new country between 1781 and 1815 and that only a minuscule number of those were Scots. However, I have run across enough migrants like John Chisholm to wonder whether the CW actually holds. Second, Bunchrew, a village in Kirkhill Parish, is with the catchment area of emigrants who later went to Scotch Settlement in Columbiana County, which includes the several parishes near Inverness and Nairn. This region of the Highlands is almost universally overlooked in the literature on the Scottish Diaspora. Third, the grandson's biography did not appear until 1905, suggesting that the memory of John Chisholm was important enough to the family to be maintained in oral or written for for at least 60 years after his death. Unfortunately, the names of his wives seem to have been much less important.

Interview: Matthew Hammond and PoMS, Part III

Welcome. I interviewed Matthew Hammond of the University of Edinburgh about the PoMS (Paradox of Medieval Scotland) database via email in September 2011. Here is the third and final installment: 

Amanda Epperson [AE]: How were the royal family trees established? What types of documents were used to verify relationship? How did you establish the accuracy of the evidence?

Matthew Hammond [MH]: It must be stressed at this point that the family trees are, like the simple search and the more advanced browse search functions, a way of getting into the database and finding out more about individual people. So the family trees that are there now are not research outcomes but rather more of a route in. The royal family trees are not particularly controversial; they are well established and we used them based on the most current academic books on the topic and the online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, in conjunction with the data from the database itself. In future, it is hoped to include many more databases on individual families, and these will require further research using the data in the database itself. 

AE: How might students, historians, and instructors use this database?

MH: There are many ways to search the database. The simple search box, which works just like a Google search, makes it very easy to get started. The obvious place is to start with a particular family name or place-name and take it from there. There are very useful tutorial guides available on the website, and the browse tab will take you to the faceted browser, which allows you to look at much more detailed aspects of the documents. For example, you may want to find all the people mentioned in ‘pro anima’ clauses in charters. These are clauses which specify that a gift is being given to the church in exchange for prayers, often for family members, and sometimes a dead child. Another interesting aspect that users can explore are the feudal conveyances on land, whereby the tenant must give the lord a symbolic render every year: popular choices were white gloves and a pair of gilt spurs. Of course, land was sometimes held for military service, and users can see, for example, estates that were held for fractions of a knight’s service. The database is linked together through ‘factoids’, a technical terms for linkages denoting things like relationships and titles. So you can easily search family relationships using these factoids.

AE: What books would you recommend for those interested in Medieval Scotland? For those interested in Scottish identity studies?

MH: There are actually a number of very useful starting points on the PoMS website, including a historical introduction to the period (http://www.poms.ac.uk/about/introduction.html) and an explanation of the paradox (http://www.poms.ac.uk/about/explaining.html), both written by top scholar Prof Dauvit Broun for newcomers to the subject. There is a great deal of recent work on Scottish identity, by Prof Broun, myself, and others, but mostly published in academic journals and volumes of collected essays. There are a plethora of books now available on medieval Scotland: one classic which is quite accessible is Geoffrey Barrow’s Kingship and Unity. A more recent survey of the period is Keith Stringer’s excellent chapter in Jenny Wormald’s Scotland: A History, in the Oxford Illustrated History series.

AE:  What did the project reveal about social relationships in Scotland during this period?

MH: A great deal. A volume called The Paradox of Medieval Scotland 1093-1286 will be published next year with contributions from many of the project team members and those on the advisory panel. These include major pieces by top scholars including Keith Stringer, Cynthia Neville, Roibeard Ó Maolalaigh and David Carpenter, as well as chapters by important new voices like Alice Taylor. These offer new perspectives on a variety of issues including law, feudalism and the Gaelic language. In the meantime, a great deal of the new research coming out the project is available for free on the website. The Features of the Month include discussions of a myriad of topics (http://www.poms.ac.uk/feature/archive.html). The project also provided fertile ground for the study of charters themselves, as evidenced in a free book on charter issues (http://www.poms.ac.uk/ebook/index.html).

AE: Most people won’t be able to trace their ancestry to the Middle Ages, unless they luck into a landed family with an established pedigree. Can you recommend any books about life in Medieval Scotland that would give family historians idea of what these distant ancestor’s lives might have been like?

MH: Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough books exploring the everyday lives of people in Scotland in the Middle Ages. This is largely due to the paucity and nature of the sources, but it is also slowly starting to change. A new paperback published by Edinburgh University Press, A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland, 1000-1600, is edited by Edward J. Cowan and Lizanne Henderson, and includes chapters on the sights and smells of living in a medieval town, and the culture of gaming. Also very useful are the books published by Historic Scotland, called the ‘Making of Scotland’ series. Piers Dixon’s Puir Labourers and Busy Husbandmen explains life in the countryside, while Derek Hall’s Burgess, Merchant and Priest explores life in the burghs. I also have plans to write a book looking at what it was like to live in Scotland before the Wars of Independence, but it is still in the planning stages.

Abernethy, Brown, Cameron, Campbell, Douglas, Fleming, Grant, Hunter, Lindsay, MacDonald, Melville, Oliphant, Sinclair, and, of course, Scott. We are currently in the process of expanding the database up to 1314, and that means we will have the names of hundreds if not thousands of new people when the new updated database is launched next year (exact date TBA).

AE: to all SEB readers, I hope you have enjoyed this interview and are inspired to visit PoMS  and to learn more about Medieval Scotland.

Haggis Wontons: Cultural Fusion in Vancouver

Leith Davis of the English Department at Simon Fraser University analyzes Gung Haggis Fat Choy, in a 2009 article "A New Perspective of the Scottish Diaspora," here in html and here in pdf.

Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a blend of Burns Night and Chinese Lunar New Year, was first celebrated in Vancouver in 1998. Davis uses this event as an example of non-Scottish Discursive Unconsciousness (SDU). You can read all about SDU in Colin McArthur's chapter in Transatlantic Scots. Essentially, he has this idea that Scots go on auto-pilot when referring to Scotland and can not help themselves when understanding their (ancestral) homeland in terms of Culloden, tartan, Burns and shortbread tins. Davis argues that this unique Vancouver event, while having elements of traditional Scottish trappings, is also its own thing.

Read the article and see what you think. Davis makes a persuasive case. On the other hand, SDU is handy because if you are in an immigrant situation the host country will understand tartan, Burns and shortbread tins, but not necessarily newer, more recent images of Scotland like the Armadillo in Glasgow or the Falkirk Wheel linking the Forth and Clyde Canals.

Outside of arguments about identity creation, Gung Haggis Fat Choy simply sounds like a lot of fun. For more information about it try here and here.

EmigranThursday - James Christie

Welcome to this week’s EmigranThursday which features James Christie of Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio. Biographical information about him appeared on pages 690-691 of the History of Columbiana County Ohio by Harold B. Barth, published in 1926. Additional research was completed on Ancestry and FamilySearch.


James Christie, deceased, was well known and highly esteemed in Salem, where he was identified with the Silver Manufacturing Company for 42 years. He was a native of Scotland, born Oct. 8, 1862, and the son of William and Elizabeth (Williamson) Christie.

            William Christie spent his entire life in Scotland and is now deceased. He was a farmer. There were 12 children in the Christie family, only one of whom are now living: Andrew, who lives in Scotland.


          James Christie was reared and educated in his native land and at the age of 21 years came to this country. He settled in Canada for a short time, after which he located in Salem, where he became connected with the Salem & Deming Manufacturing Company as a blacksmith. Mr. Christie remained in the employ of this company continuously from that time until his death, Aug. 2, 1925. The firm is now known as the Silver Manufacturing Company. He was foreman of the blacksmith and structural steel departments and was one of the company’s trusted and capable employees.

            Mr. Christie was married in 1889 to Miss Sarah Karr, of Scotland, who came to this county at the age of 23 years in 1882. She is the daughter of John and Mary (Campbell) Karr, both deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Christie were born three children: Elizabeth, married George Shasteen, lives in Salem; Mary, married Mont Calladine, lives at Warren, Ohio; and George N, lives at Salem, where he was employed by the Silver Manufacturing Company.

            Mr. Christie was a member of the Presbyterian Church and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

If the William Christie and Elizabeth Williamson that I found in FamilySearch are James' and Andrew's parents, then the family was from Whithorn, Wigtownshire in southwest Scotland. The brothers had two older siblings who were born before civil registration, John and Sarah. No other children born to this couple appeared in the FamilySearch index. How many individuals from this sizable family came to North America is difficult to say as information is limited and I don't have access to Canadian records.

Sarah Ferguson Kerr was born 22 September 1859 in Dalry, Ayrshire to John Kerr and Mary Campbell. She was baptized at the Burgher Church in Dalry on 2 October. There does not appear to be any easily recognizable siblings in the FamilySearch index.

What does seem certain, if any of James' siblings did come to North America they did not join him in Columbiana County. The first census he and Sarah appear in is 1900 (the 1890 one is not extant), then 1910 and 1920. In the Christie household in 1900 was James (38, occupation: blacksmith), Sarah (39), Elizabeth (15), Mary (12), George (4) and Sarah's mother, Mary Kerr (64). The Christies indicate that they had been married 15 years and that they both immigrated to the United States in 1883. By 1910, James was now the foreman at a tin shop, their daughters had left the household, Mrs. Kerr must have died, and they had taken in two Scottish-born boarders who were carpenters at an Engine Company. In 1920, James and Sarah Christie were empty-nesters, even the boarders were gone. In this year, they indicate that they came to the United States in 1888.

James W. Christie, according to his death certificate, was buried on August 4th in the Hope Cemetery in Salem, Ohio.  Sarah F. Christie died 21 October 1950 at the age of 91 years. 


Based upon the information in the biography and the census, it seems that James Christie emigrated to Canada in 1883 and stayed there about five years before coming to the United States in 1888. If Sarah did indeed follow the same pattern, the Christies and the Kerrs might have emigrated to Canada at the same time, if not together.

Interview: Matthew Hammond and PoMS, Part II

Welcome. I interviewed Matthew Hammond of the University of Edinburgh about the PoMS (Paradox of Medieval Scotland) database via email in September 2011. Here is part two:

Amanda Epperson [AE]: Where was Scotland during this time period, 1093-1286?

Matthew Hammond [MH]: The area under the control of the kings of Scots grew steadily during this period, and we have defined the boundaries of the project according to ‘where’ Scotland was in 1286, when Alexander III died. One of the happy accidents of this fact is it included the Isle of Man, so charters dealing with the Isle of Man are indeed included in the database. While the Hebrides were signed over to the kings of Scots in 1266, the Orkney and Shetland islands remained under the authority of the kings of Norway until the fifteenth century; therefore these areas are not covered. This is a moot point as there are no surviving charters from those areas before 1286 anyway. The border between England and Scotland fluctuated in the twelfth century but was agreed on the Tweed-Solway line in 1237.

Come back next Tuesday for the third and final installment of my interview with Matthew Hammond.

AE: What is the “paradox”?

MH: The ‘Paradox’ was also coined by the late great Professor Rees Davies, an historian who was primarily concerned with the cultural interactions between English and Normans on the one hand, and Welsh and Irish on the other. The paradox refers to the Scottish kingdom, the part of the British Isles which Davies knew least. The idea of a paradox comes from the inability of Scotland to fit models which are based on the ‘domination and conquest’ of Norman and Angevin England over Wales and Scotland. According to this model, it seemed paradoxical that Scotland was the most Anglicized and yet also the only kingdom outside England to retain its independence. This apparent paradox gets at the heart of the questions we wanted to explore with the PoMS project.

AE: Is the “paradox” really not a paradox at all? Does it simply result from misinterpretation of events in Medieval Scotland by previous scholars?

MH: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.

AE: What is prosopography? Why is it useful in historical research?

MH: Prosopography is the study of networks of human beings. Database technology is perfect for this because it allows us to search large groups of thousands of people. The Poms database has about 15000 people in it, many of whom are interrelated by marriage, friendship, and landholding ties. The research side of the PoMS project was about re-examining these social relationships in a new light, with an eye to issues like feudalism, law, and language.

AE: Were the actions of the Kings of Scots similar to the state-building of other European monarchs of this time period in that they subdued local or regional sources of power in favor of their own centralized authority? Do you think a similar process of “Scotticisation” happened at all levels of society or just at the elite level?

MH: Yes, the actions of the Kings of Scots were very similar to those of other European monarchs at this time. This included the expansion of royal power into peripheral areas which had only recognized loose overlordship previously, such as Galloway, Argyll and the far North. Royal authority was also tied up with patronage of the church, and the kings of Scots established a number of new monasteries, from the Borders to Moray, and supported the increasing power of bishops over centrally organized dioceses. This was underpinned by a network or royal castles, sheriffs and royally-licensed burghs, mainly in the lowland regions.

Generally speaking, ‘Scotticization’ refers to the new, expanded sense of Scottishness, and it is clear that it was attached to this growth in royal power, because all one had to do to be ‘Scottish’ under the new definition was to be a subject of the king of Scots.  My research has been based on evidence to do with a few different groups, including knightly families, professional clerics or people with a career in the church, and merchants and traders, many of whom were working internationally. It seems clear that this new sense of Scottishness was evident at many levels of society. At the same time, this national identity should not be overstated. Regional and local identities continued to be very important throughout the Middle Ages.

AE: How did the Anglo-Normans and other incomers to Scotland during this time period come to Scotland? Invasion? Invitation? Did those who arrived first then become anchors who encouraged the immigration of their countrymen to Scotland?

MH: They came to Scotland by invitation of the Scottish royal house, in dribs and drabs under Macbeth and Malcolm III, and then more steadily under Malcolm and Margaret’s sons in the first half of the twelfth century. David I established some of the most famous families as part of his royal household, including the Bruces and the Stewarts. Knights often came as part of the households of their patrons; this included retainers and relatives of Scottish queens and countesses like Queen Maud de Senlis, Countess Ada de Warenne and Queen Marie de Coucy. We shouldn’t think of the borders as nearly as fixed as a modern border however, and members of these families might spend part of their lives in Scotland before then moving on to some other situation in England or the Continent. There were many different contexts for immigration, but one of the things that makes the twelfth and thirteenth centuries so interesting is that it was a period of improving climate and growing population, and the one period in recorded history when we have many more people moving into Scotland than moving out of it. 

AE: How does the medieval/Gaelic use of clann differ from the modern use of the word clan?

MH: This is a very complicated question which historians and Celticists are still grappling with – ask me again in ten years!

Ted Cowan to Speak at Simon Fraser University on October 6th

The Centre for Scottish Studies at SFU is pleased to announce the following talk by Professor Ted Cowan (University of Glasgow):

'The Quest for New Caledonia: Scots in the Pacific Northwest'

Ever since Sir William Alexander received the grant of Nova Scotia in 1620 Scots had striven to establish their 'New Caledonia' in the New World. Several unsuccessful ventures shared the name. When BC was created in 1858 it was originally to be named New Caledonia, an appellation first coined by Simon Fraser. This talk explores the remarkable Scottish contribution to the opening up of the Pacific Northwest, mainly, though not exclusively, through the fur trade. It touches on such themes as the rivalry between the fur trade companies, the exploration of the northwest, the establishment of the frontier with the US, the globalisation of trade and the creation of the multicultural province that is BC.

All are welcome. There is no charge for this talk.

 

Date:

Thursday, October 6 2011 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm

 

Location:

Room 7000, SFU Harbour Centre

515 W. Hastings St.

Vancouver, BC

 

Ted, who was my dissertation advisor at Glasgow, is an engaging speaker and I encourage you to attend the lecture, if you happen to be in Vancouver.

 

with thanks to Lizanne Henderson

Where in the world is @#%& Scotland?

Have you found a place in Scotland, a home of an ancestor perhaps or maybe a hotbed of emigration, but you have no idea *where* in Scotland it is? Well the solution is at hand: ScotlandsPlaces.

This amazing site combines the resources of  The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), The National Archives of Scotland (NAS), and The National Library of Scotland (NLS). There is no charge to access the site. Read more about ScotlandsPeople and the project's partners here.

Specific directions for searching the site are here. Basically, you can just enter the place name, whether a farm, village, or parish, into the search box at the upper right hand corner and hit enter. You can also browse the collection by maps, county (pre-1975) and place name. Not all indexed items are available to view over the internet. Among the items ready to view are the Farm Horse Tax (1797-8), the Clock and Watch Tax (1797-8), images from RCAHMS, the Report of the Land Ownership Commission (1872-3), Medical Officer of Health Reports (1891), the 6-inch to the mile Ordinance Survey (OS) Maps (1843-1882) and 25-inch to the mile OS Maps (1855-1882).

If you've never looked at them before the OS maps are great resources, showing natural and built landscape features. I can't recommend them enough. The historic ones on ScotlandsPeople are neat because you can search by place, and then enlarge them and move them around and see what is nearby.

The tax rolls are not indexed by name, so looking for an individual may take some time; especially for counties like Inverness-shire, which are not even grouped by parish.

As far as I can tell, the search engine only returns exact matches - so if you spell something wrong (or your source did), you will not find a match. For example, Merryshire is how one family in America interpreted Moray in the late 19th century. I typed Merryshire into the database and got nothing, not even suggestions of what it might me. On the other hand, there are many results for Moray. I mention this not to complain about ScotlandsPlaces, but to make sure you realize that the place name must be correct for your search to be successful.

Happy Searching!


with thanks to Scottish Life