Tiree Censuses

Two children in the same family with the same given name. In some census records you may find that two children in the same family have the same given name. Usually this is not a recording or transcription error but due to the widely used traditional Scots naming system in which the first two daughters and first two sons in a family were named after the four grandparents. It sometimes happened that the maternal and paternal grandparent had the same given name, which caused two children, alive at the same time, to be given the same name. If a child died after being named in this way, a later child was usually given the same name so that the grandparent's name was continued. In practice, the younger child was usually known in the family by a pet or nickname (e.g. Peggy for Margaret and Sandy for Alexander), but real names were entered in official records.


In the 1700s occasional local censuses were commissioned by landlords or church authortities, such as the census commissioned in 1779 by the Duke of Argyll of all the people living on his estates. The first official nation-wide census in Britain was in 1801 and there has been a census every 10 years since then, except for 1941. The early official censuses, 1801-1831, recorded numbers of people only. The census of 1841 was the first to record names, ages, occupations and other information of value to genealogists. The dates of the censuses from 1841 to 1901 were:
1841
1851
1861
1871
1881
1891
1901 		6th June
30th March
7th April
2nd April
3rd April
5th April
31st March 		Sunday
Sunday
Sunday
Sunday
Sunday
Sunday
Sunday


To load the census databases below you need Microsoft Excel or Excel Viewer installed on your computer. You can get a free download of Excel Viewer at www.microsoft.com/downloads .


Inhabitants of the Argyll Estate, 1779
In 1779 the Duke of Argyll commissioned a census of all the people living on the Argyll Estates, which included the whole of Tiree and estates in Mull, Iona and mainland Argyll. The people who collected and recorded the information were tacksmen or church ministers, and the style of recording varied between different estates. In Tiree, women were listed by maiden name and age, but their relationship to those listed near them (e.g. mother, wife, daughter etc.) was not recorded. The original census lists were transcribed and edited by Eric Cregeen of the University of Edinburgh and published in 1963 by the Scottish Record Society under the title Inhabitants of the Argyll Estate, 1779. The Tiree data were extracted and put into Excel format by Iain Campbell, and are reproduced here with his permission. To view and/or search the 1779 Tiree census data click here [it may take a little time to load].

Because individual households and the relationships of people within them were not identified, as they were in later nation-wide censuses, it can be difficult to work out where households begin and end. The names were recorded household-by-household generally in order of head (usually the husband), wife (by maiden name), male children, female children, and others (who may have been grandchildren, cousins, parents-in-law or other relations, lodgers, servants etc.). This rough guide seems to work reasonably well for Tenant households but sometimes not so well for Cottar households.


1841 Census
The 1841 census results for Argyleshire and some other counties of Scotland were transcribed by Terry Sheppard of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists. The data for Tiree were extracted, surnames and place-names standardized, and the edited data put in Excel format by Russ McGillivray and Louise MacDougall. Their work is gratefully acknowledged and is reproduced here with their permission. There are two spreadsheet pages - a cover page labelled "Source Notes" and a data page labelled "Family". To change from one to the other click on the tab at the bottom of the computer screen.
To view and/or search the 1841 Tiree census data click here [it may take a little time to load].

Note that in the 1841 census ages up to 15 were recorded correctly, but ages above 15 were rounded down to the nearest 5 year multiple. For example, ages 15-19 were recorded as 15, ages 20-24 were recorded as 20, ages 25-29 were recorded as 25, and so on. Note also that wives were recorded by their husband's name, not by their maiden name as in the Argyll Estate census of 1779.


1851 Census
In a current collaborative project, Deborah Robertson is extracting the Tiree data from the Ancestry.com transcript of the 1851 Scotland census and Keith Dash is entering the extracted data into Excel format. Where it appears that there are errors or anomalies in the Ancestry.com transcript, the original census records, downloaded from ScotlandsPeople, are consulted and the data corrected or explanations inserted in the Excel spreadsheet. It is a large project and is being undertaken township-by-township. The townships of Balephuil and Gortendonell (now known as Barrapol) have been completed.
To view and/or search the Balephuil and Gortendonell census data click here [it may take a little time to load].

1881 Census
In the 40 years from 1841 to 1881 the population of Tiree declined by almost 40%, from 4,358 to 2,725. A small part of this loss was due to the departure of building workers after the completion of the Skerryvore Lighthouse, but overwhelmingly it was because of emigration either to mainland Britain, where about 1,000 Tiree-born people were living in 1881, or to more distant countries overseas. The 1881 census provided more information about individuals than did the 1841 census - ages were recorded more accurately, relationships within households were defined, and occupations were often described in more detail. The data for Tiree were extracted from the LDS Family History Resource File disks of the 1881 British census, surnames and place-names standardized, and the edited data put into a searchable Excel format by Keith Dash. To view and/or search the 1881 Tiree census data click here [it may take a little time to load].