Place:Western Isles, Scotland

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

NOTE: The co-ords are given as a general pointing covering a very large area. It is better inspected on the Google map after clicking the "-" sign a couple of times.

The Outer Hebrides was one of the administrative regions into which Scotland was divided between 1975 and 1996. It was replaced in 1996 by the Western Isles or Na h-Eileanan Siar unitary authority. There was no change in the geographic coverage between The Western Isles and the Outer Hebrides. As a result the two terms sometimes appear to be used interchangeably. Wikipedia covers both in one article which does not discuss the local government arrangements.

Prior to the division of Scotland into administrative regions, the southern islands (Harris, Barra, Benbecula, North Uist, and South Uist) were located in the County of Inverness-shire and the Isle of Lewis in the County of Ross and Cromarty. Since the parish system of division ended along with the counties in 1975, discussion of the parishes making up the Western Isles will be found under the two county headings.

A list of all the inhabited islands making up the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides can be found in the Wikipedia article, List of the Outer Hebrides. Skye, the largest island off the western coast of Scotland, is considered to be part of the "Inner Hebrides" and is not included in the Western Isles.

Source: Wikipedia's list of the administrative regions of Scotland between 1975 and 1996

Notes for the Highland Council Area and the Western Isles Council Area

The local archives are held by The Highland Archive Service which is based in Inverness with branches in Stornoway, Fort William and Caithness. It is "responsible for locating, preserving and making accessible archives relating to all aspects of the history of the geographical area of the Highlands."

Family history societies and historical associations covering the Highland Council Area and the Western Isles Council Area are:

• The Highland Family History Society based in Inverness.
• Lochaber and North Argyll Family History Group based in Fort William.

These associations publish their aims on their websites as well as a list of publications. In many cases the publications are also available through the Scottish Genealogy Society (see below).

• The FreeCen Project--Scotland has a searchable (not browsable) transcription for each of the counties in the area. Nairnshire and Caithness have the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 complete. Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty have 1841 complete with some work on 1851 and Sutherland has not completed 1841.

Transcriptions of Gravestone Inscriptions

• The Scottish Genealogy Society provides a series of monumental inscriptions either in print in booklet form or on CD for each of the counties in the area (Caithness, Inverness-shire, Nairnshire, Ross and Cromarty, and Sutherland). Some of the booklets cover only one graveyard, others cover a group. Prices vary. In many cases the coverage is of pre-1855 stones only--this is because gravestone inscriptions are often used by family historians as death registration equivalents in the era of the Old Parish Registers (when deaths were not universally recorded).
• The Fearn Peninsula Graveyards Project has a paid website which allows browsing in ten graveyards in Easter Ross. They charge £2.50 for 24 hours of usage with unlimited searches.
• An index of monumental inscriptions from Caithness compiled by D J Ryrie might prove to be a useful start for searching gravestones in that county. GENUKI states "All (?) of the monumental inscriptions (MIs) in Caithness have been collected and are in print currently from Books From Scotland amongst other places." The Scottish Genealogy Society also has a list of their holdings.
• Sutherland cemeteries are covered in Pre-1855 tombstone inscriptions in Sutherland burial grounds by A S Cowper & I Ross, published at Edinburgh in 1989 by the Scottish Genealogy Society.
• There are no specific notes for gravestone transcriptions for either Inverness-shire or Nairnshire in GENUKI. However, the Scottish Genealogy Society lists booklets for both counties.

Sources for Emigration Records

• Hebrides People have a database containing lists of people who emigrated to North America from a number of parishes in the Western Isles.