Liz Far, far more logical thinking than mine! Christine -----Original Message----- From: Liz Mason [mailto:liz@mason.ca] Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 12:26 AM To: SCT-SUTHERLAND-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: SUT- 19th century parish populations The drop in population might not seem so much but if you compare it with a community of any size elsewhere in Britain, the 19th century saw an enormous %increase in the population as families were huge and infant and adult mortality rates were improved as hygiene and diet changed for the better. Some of these improvements would not have been so noticable up in an area like Rogart but instead of saying " the population dropped by 40% in 80 years" it would probably be more accurate to say" the population would have been 5 times higher by 1881 than in 1801 had it not been for the Clearances" . Of course people probably would have moved away South for better employment prospects anyway because of the fact that they couldn't buy their own land and had to put up with the nasty landlords. I have always wondered why my lot managed to stay put when so many were thrown out, but those statistics put it all in perspective.. in fact you had a fairly good chance of remaining provided you didn't annoy the folk in charge. Which is perhaps why my G-G-grandfather called one of his sons after the agent William Young just to keep on his good side. By the way Christine did you say something about the site being too quiet? Don't do that again!! Liz ==== SCT-SUTHERLAND Mailing List ==== You may, at times, wish to check out previous messages to this list. You can do this at http://archiver.rootsweb.com/SCT-SUTHERLAND-L/ ============================== Join the RootsWeb WorldConnect Project: Linking the world, one GEDCOM at a time. http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.237 / Virus Database: 115 - Release Date: 3/7/01 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.244 / Virus Database: 119 - Release Date: 4/2/01