Raymond and Linda Gee wrote: And can anyone suggest what seaport someone emigrating from Orkney to America/Canada would take? Linda Fremont, California, USA Hi Linda. For 200 years between 1690 & 1890, every year, hundreds of Orcadians signed contracts with the Hudson Bay Company and sailed from Stromness to Canada. Some returned some settled in N America. Longhope itself was a busy harbour in the18th and 19th century. J. G. Moodie recorded that about 1805, at one time, there would be 300 vessels, of one or two masts, moored in the harbour. He recalls that he had seen 22 vessels, America bound, set sail from Longhope in an afternoon. I am researching Anderson, Banks, Cromarty, Mckay, Nicolson, Oman, Rich and Robson from Walls. Ron