Isle of Tiree Genealogy
hosted by Keith Dash
Contact me: e-mail.

With special thanks to: Alexander Murdoch McArthur Straker, Andy Straker, An Iodhlann, Ann Hentschel, Anne Maye, Argyll & Bute Council, Barbara Hall, Barbara Humphrey, Betty MacDougall, Bill Clarke, Catriona McLeod, Catriona Smyth, Chris McKinnon, Darryl Stout, Deborah Robertson, Donald MacFadyen, Duncan Grant, Esther MacRae, Flora MacDonald, Flo Straker, Gail Röthlin, Gene Lamont, Glenda McPhadden Franklin, Hilda Downey, Iain Campbell, Ian Phillips, Ian Scott, Jackie Davenport, John Read, June Ridgeway, Linda Brackenbury, Linda Temple, Louise MacDougall, Lynn Clark, Marina Campbell, Markus Röthlin, Mary MacLean, Melda Brunette, Michael Ford, Morag McMillan Galt Straker, Mull Genealogy, Nanette Mitchell, National Archives of Scotland, Patricia McEachern, RootsWeb, Russ McGillivray, Sandra Lofthouse, Sandra McEachnie-Lake, ScotlandsPeople, Terry Sheppard, Val Read, Valerie Bowden & Wayne Cameron.

About copyright. Everything on this website is provided freely in the interests of genealogical research. It is all protected by copyright, so articles or charts must not be copied and reproduced in other publications without the consent of the author(s). Copying for personal research or study is permitted. If you use information from the website in your own writings it would be appreciated if you could acknowledge the author(s) and source.

About This Website
On this website there are a number of pages, reached by clicking on the blue links, giving information contributed by people interested in genealogy and the history of the Isle of Tiree. It shares some pages with its 'twin website', Isle of Coll Genealogy.

Tiree History They Came From Tiree: Tiree and the Famine Emigrants, by Gene Donald Lamont. A history of Tiree from the Stone Age to the famine years and mass emigrations of the 1800s. Recommended reading.
Births, Baptisms & Marriages Transcripts and indexes of baptisms and marriages in the Tiree Old Parish Registers 1766-1854, and civil registrations of births 1855-1875.
Photographs and inscriptions of gravestones in the cemeteries at Soroby and Kirkapol, Tiree, with a searchable (Excel) index of names. New entries are welcome at any time.
Tiree Links A list of websites relating to Tiree or nearby islands.
Leaving Home An account of the life and times of John Macdonald and his family who emigrated from Tiree to Australia in 1853. The account includes a description of life on board immigrant ships to Australia in the 1850s.
Argyll Estate Searchable spreadsheets listing the Tiree entries in Inhabitants of the Argyll Estate 1779 and Argyll Estate Instructions 1771-1805 (Microsoft Excel or Excel Viewer is required to view the data). Also on this page are population counts of Tiree in 1787 and 1792.
Statistical Accounts Comprehensive summaries of the entries for the Parish of Tiree & Coll in The Statistical Account of Scotland (1793), The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1843), and A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland (1846).
Tiree Censuses Searchable databases of the Tiree entries in the 1779 census of the Argyll Estate and in the 1841, 1851 (in progress) & 1881 censuses of Britain ( Microsoft Excel or Excel Viewer is required to view the data).
Registers of Tiree surname interests and of people researching ancestral families or ancestral homes in Tiree. New entries are welcome at any time.
Overseas Cemetery Records A list of grave sites and gravestone inscriptions of people born in Tiree who emigrated to and died in other countries. New entries are welcome at any time.
Emigrant Ships Passenger lists of emigrants from Tiree or Coll to Canada or Australia in the 1800s.
Family Trees A register of internet addresses of family trees that originate with Tiree ancestors. New entries are welcome at any time.
Born in Tiree Information on people born in Tiree and later reported in censuses or other official records as residing elsewhere in Britain.
Coll Genealogy A link to Tiree's 'twin website' Isle of Coll Genealogy.
Argyll & Bute Archives Indexes of family history documents held in Argyll & Bute Council Archives, Lochgilphead, Scotland, and links to transcripts of selected documents.


About the Isle of Tiree


Traditional Tiree thatched house, Kilmoluaig, late 1920s
photo courtesy of Angus Munn and An Iodhlann, Tiree

Tiree, the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides group off the west coast of mainland Scotland, is small and flat, about 20km long and 2-12km wide, and completely treeless.There is evidence of Stone Age and Iron Age settlements, and Celtic and Viking occupations. Viking influence lasted until the mid 1200s, and many Norse place names still survive on the island. After the defeat of the Vikings, the island again came under the control of Gaelic-speaking peoples, at first the MacDougalls, then the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, and then the MacLeans. There were conflicts between the MacLeans and the mainland Campbells, and in the 1600s the MacLean estates in Tiree and Mull were taken over by Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll. Tiree has remained under the ownership of the Campbells, Dukes of Argyll, since that time. The Gaelic language has survived in Tiree, as have the Gaelic traditions of song, poetry and storytelling. Over 40% of present-day islanders are fluent speakers of Gaelic and it is taught to children as a second language in the island's schools.

The island's population peaked at about 5,000 in the 1800s and today is about 700. The early islanders survived by farming and fishing, but at little more than subsistence level. For centuries Tiree had been a grain producing island, but from the 1700s onwards the islanders began to rely more on potatoes than on cereal meal as a staple food. With the outbreak of potato blight in the late 1840s, which devastated crops in Scotland as well as Ireland, the people of Tiree experienced a number of years of severe famine.

Even before the famine years of 1846-1854 Tiree had become seriously overpopulated. The population had increased from 1,500 in 1750 to almost 5,000 in 1840, by which time many island people were living in severe poverty. The 8th Duke of Argyll, when he succeeded to the estate in 1847, wrote that Tiree had "a vast semi-pauper population". He became an enthusiastic advocate of assisted emigration to relieve the situation. From 1847 to 1853, 1,354 Tiree people were assisted to emigrate, principally to Canada, and an unknown number of others left for the mainland. It was claimed that this was "a purely voluntary emigration", but there is evidence that the poorest people were targeted by persuasion or coercion. Summonses of removal were issued against 174 tenants on the island and others were "warned" of removal. Between 1847 and 1861, the number of small tenancies, those paying an annual rent of less than £5, declined from 242 to 52. The Duke's Tiree estate manager, or factor, was Colonel John Campbell, known on the island as the 'Big Factor' or the 'Black Factor'. He was energetic in implementing the Duke's policy of raising rents, evicting those in arrears, and arranging assisted passages to overseas countries. The houses of evicted families were burned, and islanders caught giving shelter to these people risked being evicted themselves. You can find the ruins of their houses, now just piles of stones overgrown with grass, in the fields around the present-day townships.

The present-day population of Tiree is about 700, but there is a much larger community, estimated at about 38,000, scattered around the world, mainly in Canada, Australia or New Zealand, who are descendants of Tiree emigrants. Our ancestors may have been coerced to emigrate; in their new homelands they may have been called 'primitive' because they spoke Gaelic as their first language and were not proficient in written English; but they and their children were the builders of new nations.

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