I got great answers to my questions about rentals, on the Angus list and thought my fellow genealogy buddies on the Angus list might like the same information. I'm sorry if it fails to be of interest. Mary in Oregon BRUINSWOOD@aol.com wrote: > may i ask someone to define feuer, and crofter? A "feuar" (note usual spelling) was someone who (to all intents and purposes) owned a piece of land. The term originates in the feudal system. Technically (and until quite recently) all land was considered to belong to the Crown, and individuals were granted "feus" or parcels of land in exchange for sundry "services". Originally, these services would have been military in nature, but were long ago commuted for cash payments. The King would originally have "feued out" large areas of land to members of the nobility, and they, in turn, would have "sub-feued" smaller estates to regional lairds, and so on, until a single farm's worth - or a single house's worth - of land was feued to an individual. Because of the terminology used, you will often find that landowners - even landowners on a very modest scale - describe themselves as "feuars". "Crofters" on the other hand, were people who occupied a croft, for rent. > I have recently been told there were lowland clearances? > Is this true and when did they occur? what were > the lenghth and conditions/terms of rent? If you mean, were people forcibly ejected from their homes, to make way for sheep, then the answer is "no" - but mainly because in the Lowlands, the great majority of farms and crofts were held on short leases. Again and again in the "Statistical Accounts" (approximately 1790 and 1840) you read that the norm for a particular was for leases of 19 years. This meant that an "improving" landlord (which, in the Lowlands, probably meant someone interested in promoting high-intensity agriculture, rather than sheep-ranching) had only to wait until the current lease fell in, and he could then offer the land at a rent that was so much higher that the crofter could not afford it. Multiple crofts and farms could then be let as a single unit to a more modern and "high-tech" farmer who could pay the higher rent. The upshot was that large numbers of Lowlanders left the land and emigrated, either into the fast-growing cities of Scotland and the rest of the UK, or overseas, but without any of the more obvious cruelties which were practised at times in the Highlands. > If a renter added farm buildings, fences/walls, added mechanized machinery, > basically improving the farm, was the family rewarded by the owner in any > way? That would depend on the terms of the lease. But it was not unknown, for example, for the departing occupant of a croft to take with him as much as he could (for example the roof-timbers of the house) for re-use elsewhere (assuming he could find another croft). > > Milton of Ogil, Tannadice, Angus, was where one of mine lived. I've see > cottontown and millton or milltown before. Not "Cottontown". What you will have seen is "Cot-town" or "Cottar-town", a collection of cottages. A "cottar" was someone who rented less than a croft - generally a house with at most a bit of garden ground. Such places tended to be grouped together, and before mechanisation, were encouraged by landlords, since the occupants of the "cottar-houses" would be a source of seasonal labour (as would the crofters, few of whom could manage on the produce of the croft alone). "Milltown" or "Milton" is clearly a group of houses near a mill. > anyone know of a book or site that defines scottish cottage and farm names? If you are talking about prefixes like "Milton" or "Cotton" or suffixes like "Cottage", "Mill", "Moss" then it wouldn't take a very long book! There are a few more similar formations, such as "Kirkton" (whose origin is obvious) and "Hatton" which is the "ton" near the "hall" (or major house). Other sub-parts of placenames would be "North", "South" "Upper", "Lower" and a range of other standard terms which really need little explanation. If you are talking about the root placenames (like "Ogil" or "Tannadice") then there are likely to be many books attempting to account for their origins, each dealing with a particular geographical area. "The Placenames of Aberdeenshire", for example, fills a book of over 400 pages, and while I do not know of an equivalent for Angus, I would lay even money that there is one (or even more than one). Bear in mind, however, that the "root" placenames are generally of much greater antiquity than the prefixes and suffixes, and consequently there is likely to be greater degree of uncertainty (not to say speculation) in what can be said of their origins. It is probably true that most of these "root" names date from the times when the countryside was inhabited by speakers of Gaelic or Pictish, and have been handed down mainly by oral tradition. In the eastern Lowlands, however, most of them were not written down until the inhabitants had been speaking Scots for centuries, so many of them will have been mangled in transmission. Gavin Bell In a message dated 5/4/2010 6:30:19 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, BRUINSWOOD@aol.com writes: I searched add-all for old books on Errol, since a member of the angus list was interested in Errol. I had written her about two local history books on Errol and the Carse of Gowrie, and to my delight I found two little paperbacks on the villages along the carse, one east and one west. They include east Invergowrie, Kingoodie, Inchture and Kinnaird. west, includes Kinfauns, Glencarse, Errol and Rait. _http://used.addall.com/_ (http://used.addall.com/) I searched by keyword Carse of Gowrie, Perthshire or Errol, Perthshire. If anyone knows of other books on the area, I'd love to hear from you. I have the two written by Lawrence Melville in 1935, and was delighted to learn he's related to my Powries. I'm trying to find books about the placenames of Perthshire, but have found only a book on Aberdeenshire. Mary in Oregon In a message dated 3/16/2010 4:36:52 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, olsongayle@gmail.com writes: I have a ship question for you. My gggg grandparents, John (Ian) McMartin and Katherine Robertson were married on Valentines Day, 1798 in Weem, Perthshire and set sail for Canada shortly after that. One source said it was at the invitation of two of Katherine's brothers who were already in Canada. >From a distant cousin, I received this excerpt from a letter by Bert McMartin of Castalia, Iowa (brother to my great grandmother Elsie McMartin Kobriger and son of Daniel Angus McMartin who was grandson of John & Katherine) to his Aunt Gladys (Mrs. F.M. Pettygrove, Wilton ND dated 12 Dec 1925, when Bert was about 53: " As far as I know, in 1798 John (Ian) McMartin and his wife Katherine amd some other relatives left Scotland (they were Highlanders) for America. They were on the ocean for several months. The captain of the vessel went crazy and sailed back and forth on the ocean for months until they were almost out of provisions. When the first mate seized the captain and put him in restraints. The mate took charge of the vessel and steered for the nearest shore, which was Labrador. It then sailed on to the Bay of Chaleurs. They stayed there probably one or two years. From there they went to Huntington, Quebec outside of Montreal and then on to St. Andrew's East, Quebec on the River Rouge." In trying to hunt this down, I've found that lumber from Canada was a popular export from this area and era and that sometimes new emigrants were the "backhaul" on these ships returning to Canada from Great Britain. Sounds like an interesting story - does anyone know any more info about this ship or the people involved? Also, I've heard that John's father (Duncan McMartin, married to Janet Gilchrist) died in Nova Scotia, but haven't been able to find documentation. Thanks for any info! The names and dates are wonderful, but the stories are my favorite - also the hardest to confirm! -Gayle Olson ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PERTHSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message