Place:Bute, Scotland

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The County of Bute (Siorrachd Bhòid in Gaelic) is one of the registration counties of Scotland. In 2001 its usually resident population was 13,720.

The County of Bute, or Buteshire (used, but not as common) is made up of three islands in the Firth of Clyde: Arran, Bute, the island, and Great Cumbrae. Arran has two parishes, Bute has three, and Great Cumbrae is one parish.

There is very little transport between the three islands, but each has a ferry service for both passengers and motor vehicles (Bute has two) to different ports on the mainland and connections to Glasgow by train and road.

Today there is not much industry other than farming and tourism on any of the islands, but commuting to the mainland on a daily basis is quite possible from Bute and Cumbrae. The Arran ferry journey is longer than that to the other two islands.

Government since 1975

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Bute, also known as Buteshire, was a local government county of Scotland with its own elected county council from 1890 to 1975. The council area comprised a number of islands in the Firth of Clyde, between the local government counties of Argyll and Ayrshire, the principal islands being the Isle of Bute, the Isle of Arran, Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae.

The county town was Rothesay, located on the Isle of Bute.

In 1975 the county area was divided between the Argyll and Cunninghame districts of the Strathclyde region. The Isle of Bute became part of Argyll while the Isle of Arran and the Cumbraes became part of Cunninghame.

As a result of local government reorganisation in 1996, when unitary council areas were created, the Isle of Bute is now part of Argyll and Bute, and the other islands are within North Ayrshire.

History

The article in Genuki describes Bute, which it calls Buteshire, from a 19th century perspective.

Buteshire Scotland Genealogy, the Scotland GenWeb site, is a series of links to other sites, most of which are more specific to one of the three islands.

Research Tips

• "Buteshire Resource and Information Links" on the Scotland GenWeb site has some very useful onward references.

• GENUKI's introduction to the County of Bute or Buteshire, and the annotated list of Bute's parishes are, for the most part, quotes from 19th century gazetteers, but nonetheless valuable for all that.

• Transcriptions of all the 19th century censuses are available on FreeCen.

• ScotlandsPeople holds indexes and images for all civil births, marriages and deaths, censuses 1841-1911, and for all Old Parish Registers throughout Scotland. It is a pay-per-view site. ScotlandsPeople also holds records of Wills and Testaments and Coats of Arms. Access to this latter part of their website is free.

• From the National Library of Scotland Website is John Arrowsmith's 1875 map of Scotland which can be digitally expanded to a very large scale. This brings up Arran and Bute and the surrounding mainland beautifully. This is one of a very large series of maps on this site which can keep a map-mad genealogist entertained for hours.

• Vision of Britain provides both the topographical Ordnance Survey of Scotland First Series (1856-1887) in black and white, and the Ordnance Survey of Scotland Popular Edition (1928-1945) in colour at a scale of 1:63360, as well as other series of maps covering the whole of the United Kingdom. These maps are wonderful for finding places that have diminished in size over the past 150 years.