COMPLETED with thanks -- Role of Tacksman -- early 19th century

[josey]

If you can find out which feudal estate Connage belonged to, you may be lucky enough find the estate rental deposited in the National Archives Records of Scotland. Many estates or their solicitors deposited the bulk of estate records when they felt there was no longer a need [or space] to keep them.

The chartulary volumes held details of feus but the rental for tacks & leases. As I understand it tacks & leases were only rarely recorded in the Register of Sasines & usually only when a loan was needed to be raised against the property.

Josey

[Skoosh]

Annie,  the Heritable Jurisdiction privelages were abolished after the '45 and compensation paid to the landowners.   Thereafter, cash not claymores, became their prime interest.
 The feudal system of land ownership was only abolished in 2004, although the landowners unfortunately  are still with us. Very much unfinished business.
Similarly the proposed conversion of long leases (tacks) into outright ownership, as long as there was 100 years still to run, only went to the Scottish Parliament a few years ago.
Many estates were formerly strictly entailed, preventing squanderful heirs from selling them off, but granting tacks (for hundreds of years, in some cases), was a way round this problem.
You might be able to find this registered as a deed and not in the Sasines.

Best Wishes,

Skoosh.

[CelticAnnie]

Interesting stuff, Josey & Skoosh.  I will bear what you say in mind and see if I can uncover who owned the land at this time -- which might then help me pin down exactly when my ancestor had this tack.  Thank you for your helpful posts.

CELTIC ANNIE

[Skoosh]

Annie,  Connage was owned at one time by the Knights Templar. The Campbells of Cawdor & the Mackintosh were also influential but the Earl of Moray was the largest proprietor in the Parish of Petty in the 19th cent'. Probably the best bet for the tack.

Some murder & mayhem here,

 http://www.clan-macpherson.org/museum/documents/alang09.pdf

Connage Highland Dairy at Milton of Connage now make cheeses, a wee bit of a change 

Skoosh.

[CelticAnnie]

Thanks for all this extra info., Skoosh.

Good grief -- what a lot of murder and mayhem that fascinating document you gave me a link to records.  Very gory. (Glad I read it before breakfast, rather than during!) But very interesting.  Those were certainly dangerous times to live in.  Glad my lot didn't move up to that part of the world until much later!

And I will certainly check out the Earl of Moray -- thank you.   

CELTIC ANNIE

[Anita Grant Steele]

To all the contributors of this info, thank you. I'm a newbie and came across this topic by chance. I have been trying to figure out some of the same issues with our Grants of Inverlochy (near Tomintoul) from roughly 1675-1800 . You have been very helpful!

[Forfarian]

By that period I would think "tacksman" probably meant no more and no less than "renter of land" - albeit Connage (Ardersier) would have been a fair distance from the Caledonian Canal workings for a daily commute back then.
He may however have travelled by boat if the work was based at the Clachnaharry (sea-lock) portion. Would he perhaps have taken the long-term tenancy of land (and house) rather than rent or buy a house in Inverness itself?

Having actually sailed a modern yacht from Clachnaharry past Ardersier (to Lossiemouth), it could have been a very long journey in terms of time, and in winter he would barely have got from Ardersier to Clachnaharry before it was time to head home again unless he was prepared to sail in the dark. It would have been quicker by horse!

[CelticAnnie]

Since I made my original post, I have learned (through further research) that my canal-building ancestor was actually farming out at Ardesier (and apparently not very successfully!) so he may have completed his role in the canal construction before ever moving out to Mains of Connage, so that he would have had no need to commute for work from there to Inverness.  Thought I should just update the position.