Patricia Long wrote: > Anne, > > A tacksman rented land from the Earldom and then re-let it for as > much as he could. I gather that he's unlikely to just have been > tacksman of Rothiesholm, as that seems to be too small an area to > have been rented on its own. It sounds as if your ancestor was a man > of substance. Anne and Patricia, I approach this subject with a certain trepidation because I'm well aware that I don't much much about it. However... I think you're correct in your description of the role of the tacksman, Patricia, but he didn't necessarily rent land from the Earldom. For example, according to William Thomson, in the 1470s, "Management of Orkney was entrusted to him [Bishop William Tulloch] in a series of short tacks whereby, for a stipulated annual payment, he was granted the rights to the king's revenues. In 1474 he was given the tack for the payment of fifty chalders of bere (barley), one hundred and twenty salt marts (cattle slaughtered and salted) and £120 in money... In addition to collecting rents, the bishop was responsible for the administration of justice and he had custody of that ultimate symbol of authority, the Castle of Kirkwall... As far as the king was concerned, the management of his new property was an easy matter. The produce of the tack was delivered by the tacksman to Leith where the bere was converted to malt and loaded aboard the king's ships, presumably for export. For the tacksman it was not so simple. He had to collect a very large number of small payments, partly in money, but mainly in butter, malt, grain and 'flesh'... In practice the bishop delegated his business affairs to factors... They in turn dealt with a network of sub-tacksmen at parish level..." At that time, therefore, the tacksman rented Orkney from the king (or later from the Earldom), had to make an annual payment to his superior (the king or the earl) and could otherwise see what profit he could make out of controlling the islands. That was what a "top tacksman" did in Orkney. Basically, however, a tack is just a lease or a tenancy. Though men like Bishop William had a lease of the whole of the king's or the earl's lands in Orkney, a tack could be much more humble. Bear in mind that Anne's referring to the 19th century, long after the earldom had disappeared. Who owned Stronsay at that time? Was it the Laing family? I don't know. However, I assume that Anne's ancestor would just have had been tenant of Rothiesholm. (Is that the area where the wind turbines are now?) Possibly the terms of his lease from the owner of Stronsay might have allowed him to sublet some smallholdings to others. I suppose a census of the time would indicate how many smallholdings there might have been in Rothiesholm at the time. Is Rothiesholm an area of good agricultural land? It's my impression that it may contain a fair amount of poorish moorland but I could be wrong. I therefore don't know how big a deal it would have been to be tacksman of Rothiesholm. Since you seem to have your great-great-grandfather's will, Anne, I suppose that would give a pretty fair indication of just how prosperous he was. Incidentally, I should think that some of the servants would have been farm workers, but quite possibly others would have been domestic servants — housemaids or maybe dairymaids, for example. I take it that this page refers to your forebears, Anne: http://www.buyorkney.com/roots/biographies/peter_twatt/ There certainly is a farm called The Bu marked on the map in Rothiesholm. Presumably that would have been — maybe still is — the main farm in that area and the one that the tacksman would have occupied. James Irvine's your man for this sort of query, should be happen to come along! Norman Tulloch