daughter of Updar, King of Alba (Scotland) and had three sons, known as the Three Collas (princes). Colla Uais, who died about 337 AD, was ancestor of Fergus Mac Carthann (sometimes incorrectly conflated with Fergus Mor Mac Erc – see below), father of Godfrith (d. 853), Taoiseach (Lord) of the Isles. Godfrith’s descendants included Dughgall, ancestor of the MacDowells, and Somerled (d. 1164), Thane of Argyll and founder of the Kingdom of the Isles, whose own 3 x great-grandson was Domhnall, ancestor of the MacDonalds. The Campbells, Earls of Argyll, meanwhile, claimed descent from Dairmuid Ua Duibhne, 4 x great-grandson of Fedhlimidh Rachtmar (d. 119 AD), 108th High King of Ireland (the father of the famous Conn of the Hundred Battles, legendary High King of Ireland).
The Medieval pedigrees of the Scottish kings, as recorded in both Scotland and Ireland, show their descent, rather confusingly, from two King Fergusses, both of Irish origin. The first (surely legendary) Fergus was the 3 x great-grandson of Fiacha Firma, son of Aeneas Tuirmeach-Teamrach (d. 324 BC), High King of Ireland. Fiacha was abandoned at sea in a small boat, but drifted to safety in Argyll, where he established the Irish colony-kingdom of Dal Riada. Later, when the Irish colonists were under attack from the native Picts, his descendant Fergus returned to become the king.
By the 2nd century AD we hear for sure of the Irish kingdom of Dalriada that spanned north-east Ulster and the Argyll Peninsular of Scotland. It may have had its roots in that earlier Dal Riada, or that may have been a legend, created to give ancient legitimacy to the Ulster tribe’s presence on the mainland. The later Scottish Dalriadan kings claimed descent from the second King Fergus Mor Mac Erc (d. 501 AD), son of Muireadach of Ulster (a grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages – see p. 165) and his wife Erca, daughter of Lorne, descendant of the earlier Fergus (but note that somewhat contradictory pedigrees make Fergus Mor son of a king called Erc, who was in turn son of this king Lorne). Fergus Mor was sent to Scotland to help the Dalriadans against the invading Picts, and ended up being elected king. He was the ancestor, through a line considered by many to be highly accurate, of Kenneth MacAlpin, King of Dalriada in 848–9 AD, who also ruled the Pictish kingdom to the east and thus became first king of all (or most) of Scotland, the ancestor of the subsequent Scottish monarchs. From Fergus Mor’s brother Lorne, meanwhile, descended the Mormears of Moray, of whom the most famous was MacBeth (d. 1057), and the Earls of Moray and Ross.
The ancient genealogies make both Ferguses descendants of Milesius and thus of the Egyptian princess Scota (see p. 179), who in Scottish eyes was the eponymous founder of their race.
Marriages: married women are indexed under both maiden and married names. Certificates include names of both parties’ mothers and fathers, including mothers’ maiden names. Women often kept their maiden names after marriage.
Deaths: ages are given in the indexes from 1868 and dates of birth from 1969. Mothers’ maiden names are given from 1974. Certificates for 1855 alone record names of offspring, and those from 1855 to 1861 record place of burial. For 1855 and since 1861 they provide name of spouse and the deceased’s parents, including father’s occupation and mother’s maiden name. This may identify a whole generation back in Ireland, though as everyone concerned is likely to have been dead this offers much scope for error.
The General Register Office also has indexes to:
consular births and deaths from 1914 and marriages from 1917.
army births, marriages and deaths for Scots in British bases worldwide from 1881.
deaths of Scots in the armed forces for the Boer War and World Wars I and II.
births and deaths of Scots or children of Scottish fathers in British aircraft from 1948.
Censuses
These were taken every ten years between 1841 and 1901 and are indexed at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. They are almost identical to Ireland’s and England’s, but from 1861 they state the number of rooms with one or more windows, whether people were employers, and if so how many people they employed. In 1841, births outside Scotland are identified ‘I’ for Ireland, ‘E’ for England and ‘F’(foreign) for everywhere else.
Directories
Edinburgh’s directories started in 1773, and Glasgow’s in 1783. For most poor Irish immigrants they’re more useful for providing background on communities and chapels than naming individuals. As time passed, however, they became broader in their coverage and Irish families became more established, making directories an increasingly useful source.
Religious registers
In 1560, through the work of John Knox, Presbyterianism became Scotland’s
established church. Presbyterianism differed from the CoE, CoI and Catholicism by scrapping the hierarchy of archdeacons, bishops and so on. Each parish was self-governed by elected elders meeting in ‘kirk sessions’, choosing its own ministers. Representatives of neighbouring congregations met in Presbyteries, which sent representatives to the General Assembly.
All surviving registers are indexed to 1854 at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. Some go back to 1553, but few survive before the mid-18th century. The newer editions of the Phillimore Atlas (see p. 38) include parish maps and dates of commencement of registers. Marriage registers generally record not the event itself, but proclamations of intention to marry, often amounting to much the same. Few parishes recorded burials, but the parishes’ administrative records, the kirk sessions, often include ‘mort cloth dues’ – the fee paid for renting out the kirk’s black shroud for funerals.
Relatively few gravestones were erected or survive before the mid-19th century: much of what survives has been collected by the Scottish Genealogical Society. Some Scottish baptisms and marriages from different denominational records are at www.familysearch.org, but the index is far from complete.
Catholicism was made illegal in 1560, but remained a small but potent force. The risings of 1715 and 1745 contained strong Catholic elements. When the 1745 rising was crushed by the English, Catholics experienced severe persecution lasting until 1793. Most surviving pre-1855 Catholic registers are at the NAS, and those kept subsequently are with the churches: for a detailed guide see Gandy’s books (see p. 36).
Newspapers
Scotland’s extensive newspaper output can be examined at the NLS. The Scotsman (founded 1817) is now fully online to 1900 at www.archive.scotsman.com.
Poor Relief
Where they survive, Poor Relief records can provide superb details on poor Irish immigrants. They date from 1845, though nothing survives for Edinburgh, Dundee or Aberdeen. The Glasgow area, however, to which most Irish migrants went, is very well covered, specifically for Glasgow (from 1851), Barony (1861) and Govan (1876), and other local parishes in Bute, Dunbartonshire, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire, to 1948. They are at the Mitchell Library, indexed to 1900. Records can include name, age, marital status, religion, occupation; name, age and income of spouse; details of children, siblings and parents. They will say why the application was being made and, crucially, most state the place of birth which, if it is in Ireland, can be the clincher for your research.
Sometimes, the solution was repatriation. The Returns of Poor Removal from England, Wales and Scotland to Ireland, 1870–80 (HMSO), specially published for Parliament, contain many examples. In 1876, Mary Brown or
