Bill Lawson Publications

Bill Lawson has been specialising in the Family and Social History in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland for over 40 years, and is widely recognised as an authority in the area.

Virtually every household in the Western Isles in the last 200 years has been researched and a resource bank of over 27,500 family tree sheets has been gathered, together with many emigrant families in Canada, USA, Australia etc.

Family tracing in the Outer Hebrides has always proved difficult, due to the scarcity and poor quality of source material, but from the resource available at Co Leis Thu? it is usually possible to chart families back to the generation born c1750-80 - and frequently much farther.

Sources used:

• Census Returns 1841-1901
• Civil Registrations of Births, Marriages and Deaths from 1855 onwards
• Old Parish Registers (Established Church and Roman Catholic)
• Estate Papers, including rental rolls
• Emigration Lists
• Government Papers and other published sources
• Oral Tradition

Oral tradition has always been strong in these islands, and since it is preserved in Gaelic, which is still in normal usgae here, it is more comprehensive and often much more reliable than many written sources in English.
Large collections of oral tradition have been, and still are being, gathered in conjunction with local Comuinn Eachdraidh (History Groups), and this resource can be used to expand and correct information taken from more formal sources for the researcher.
Oral tradition includes patronymics, song, story and preservation of family relationships.