Where is ...... ?

[Jaki]

Hi

I purchased the death certificates of my great grandparents about a month ago and have just sat down and read all the information on them.

Both certificates agree that they were married in May 1852 but the place differs on both. One has the place as Strathdearn and the other as Hill of Tom*. Could someone please tell me if they are anywhere near one another. Is one part of the other?

Most of the information i have found places them in the Moy and Dalarossie area prior to them arriving in Australia.

I am getting very confused trying to trace the families through the scotlands people site not knowing the geography of Scotland.

Can someone please help

Jaki

[Little Nell]

Jaki,

Strathdearn is the name of a valley in Inverness-shire on the northern edge of the Highlands.  The river that flows through it is the Findhorn which flows into the Moray Firth at Findhorn Bay.  Forres and Kinloss are the towns nearest.  Where the main road north from Perth to Inverness crosses the river there is a town called Tomatin.  It has a distillery (to be expected).  The area is more than likely in the Moy and Dalarossie parish that you spoke about, since Moy is about 3 or 4 miles further north.

There is usually a lot of information on the Scotland pages of
www.genuki.org.uk
You could also have a look at
www.scan.org.uk
This is the Scottish Archive Network site which contains lots of information and has a gazetteer section.  Unfortunately it didn't work for Strathdearn because that is a geographic feature rather than a town/city or parish.

So I'd say that the information was correct in both cases, just a different interpretation.

Good luck

Nell

[Jaki]

Nell

Thanks for that. Will now go and look at the websites and see what i can find.

Jaki

[Forfarian]

As Nell says, Strathdearn is in the parish of Moy and Dalarossie. This is an extensive parish, but much of it is and probably always was uninhabited moorland.

The Gaelic word tom means a knoll or low hill (though it can also mean an ant-hill or a bush). So 'Hill of Tom' is a bit of a tautology, as well as a mixture of languages - it means 'Hill of Hill'.

There are several small hills in Moy and Dalarossie called Tom something-or-other.

However I surmise that 'Hill of Tom' is the name of a farm or croft, probably somewhere in Strathdearn.

Wedding ceremonies normally took place in the bride's home, or occasionally in her place of work if she lived a long way from her parental home, or her parents were dead. Church weddings were the exception rather than the rule.

So I think that if you can get hold of a copy of the 1851 census, the chances are that you will find your bride's family somewhere in Moy and Dalarossie, probably in Strathdearn.

You should be able to arrange to borrow the relevant microfilm at your nearest LDS Church Family History Centre. Alternatively you could ask if anyone on this forum or one of the various lists and boards at www.rootsweb.com would be able to look it up for you.

You could also try www.old-maps.co.uk. Go for Tomatin - it's certainly not big enough to qualify as a town, maybe not even a village, but it is marked on the maps so you can start there and work south-west along the river to see if you can find Hill of Tom.

You can also have a look on the modern map at www.streetmap.co.uk. You'll need to zoom in to see it properly.