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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Orkney => Topic started by: tedscout on Saturday 16 February 13 02:03 GMT (UK)
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In the 1851 Census I have a family who lived at the above address.
John Isbister head of the family was a Farmer of 6 acres and his sons' were also farm workers from what I can make out.
John and his wife Jessie and their 9 children emigated to Australia in 1852. I am trying to picture what they left behind and get some idea of the life they lived before they emigrated.
I know nothing about Scotland and even less about Stromness. I have googled extensively but cannot find this address or any part of it except of course Orkney and Stromness.
I was wondering if there was a house or a farm still there. I am doing this research on behalf of a friend who has even less knowledge of the UK than I have.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you in advance for any help offered.
Cheers, Ted
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Ted, as this their address in the 1851 census, you may need to take misspellings into account. Did this come from a transcription or have you viewed the original census on Scotland's People? Do you have them in 1841 as well?
Do you have the birth entries of any or all of their children to see where they were living at that time? THis may give you a better idea location wise.
Have you looked at the NLS maps?
http://maps.nls.uk/
I may be wrong, but it does sound like 'Crya' was the name of the farm and 'Ontertown' the nearest village. It is quite possible that the farm no longer exists, or has changed name. I will have a look to see if I can find anything. :)
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Right Ted, I have just found this family in the 1851 census and see that this is transcribed information. I have found some extremely dodgy transcriptions from the Scottish records, so Crya Ontertown probably does not exist. I would check the children's births if I were you in case addresses are given.
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Address is 'Innertown' in 1841 .... this seems to exist. ;D
http://www.britishplacenames.co.uk/hy2408-innertown-orkney-islands
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Thanks for helping Ruskie.
I have now purchased the original from Scotlands people and it is actually "Outertown" which does exist, but there is not a lot there according to Google maps.
This is the family that emigrated
John born abt 1805 Sandwick, Orkney, wife Jessie born abt 1807 also b Sandwick. children Margaret 1833 b ?? John 1835 Orkney, Alexander 1836 b Steamin?, Jessie b 1838, Peter b 1840, Ann b 1842, Jane b 1845, Mary b 1847, James b 1850 all born Stromness.
In 1841 they were in Smogarth, Firth and John was a stonemason See later post this is an error
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Um, maybe there is an Outertown and Innertown and the family moved from one to the other. :)
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2 red posts. Thanks Ruskie.
Innertown was a different place to Outertown. I wonder how he managed to go from stonemason to farmer 6 acres. I wonder if he inherited it. They didn't seem to have much money when they got here to Australia.
And another red post. Yes Outertown and Innertown - how original LOL
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In 1841 they were in Smogarth, Firth and John was a stonemason
I have found who I think is your family in Innertown in 1841. John is a farmer.
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This is the original house names. with the Isbisters' living in the middle one 55.
Can anyone work out if it really is Crya?
Red post: how did you find that one Ruskie? Your's makes more sense than mine.
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It does look like Crya, though I'm not 100% sure of the r.
I am trying to find some good old maps of the area to see if the farms are named.
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In 1841 they were in Smogarth, Firth and John was a stonemason
I have found who I think is your family in Innertown in 1841. John is a farmer.
I'm an idiot - I had found the same family as you by finding Jessie - :-[ It was late last night when I started this - I must have forgotten :-\
Red post: thanks Ruskie
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Think I found it. It is Creya. :)
I will try to explain where it is in a minute when I get my bearings. (also found the neighbours - 'Barebrecks') ... and Dykeside
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Wow Ruskie, brilliant thank you.
I have been looking for the births of the children on Scotlandspeople - so far no luck :(
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There was certainly a lot more there than there is now, looking at the OS 1843-1882 map - guess lots of these remote places have died, sadly. Still trying to narrow down the exact location.
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I think that surname could be a problem when looking for the children's baptisms.
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This surname is a problem .fullstop.
I found them on the passenger list as ISBESTER. Luckily for me they came out on the "fever ship" the Ticonderoga. So there is a huge amount of information about them. Including a whole website dedicated to the passengers.
Funny thing is I did a school project about 35 years ago on that ship because I lived in the Mornington Peninsula back then and loved local history.
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Right, about the best I can do, is this:
If you find Outertown on google maps - look where the word Outertown is written, see Stromness Reservoir to the right, then looking directly above the word Outertown you see a fairly heavy white line like an upturned V. Creya seems to have been approximately in between where the word Outertown is and that white upturned V. I will attempt to send you a link to the map I am looking at, but I'm not sure if it will work:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0sxw/
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Looks like a really beautiful place.
Interesting story about the fever ship. I'll have to google that now. :)
Were any of the Isbister family lost on the voyage?
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I take it you have tried searching i*ester and i*b*ter etc etc?
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Ruskie the map loaded thank you.
The cottage called Stank still exists I found it on a realestate website.
I should be able to find it from here.
I am still looking for the kids births. Someone on ancestry has John (the father) as having parents named Thomas and Jane GRAY. But this tree also has him still in Scotland in 1861 even though they also have him arriving in Australia in 1852. ???
Think I might have to figure out how the Scottish naming system works and if they used it to name the kids.
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I can see a farmhouse still stands where Creya is/was on the old map - you can fiddle with the overlay to find it and compare with a modern map. There appear to be fewer buildings there now than there used to be. Resolution is not good and there is no streetview either.
That tree you found sounds a bit suspicious if they some of their facts wrong. The Scottish naming system can be useful but I wouldn't rely on it. Do John and Jessie's Australian death certificates name their parents?
If I were you I would start a new thread asking for help locating the children's births. :)
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I take it you have seen this?:
http://www.orkneyfhs.co.uk/sfndocs/15/15.pdf
(page 12, mentions your family and Creya Farm)
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Scroll down the list here and Crya is mentioned:
http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital_volumes/osnamebooks/?dv_id=0&p_type=PARISH&p_name=Stromness
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3 red post: Yes I found the cottage too. I got as close as I could on Streetview but it is very blurry. I wonder if some kind person who lives in Stromness would take a photo of it for me.
I have a photo of the house they first lived in when they got here. My girlfriend knows nothing about this side of her family. So I am now quite excited about being able to tell her.
I presume they didn't own the place but were tennent farmers.
Thank you for the 2 extra links I will go and have a quiet read ;)
And thank you again for all your help I would have been quite lost without you.
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Yes I think I will ask for help with the children's births and mum and dad too.
Think I will also have to invest some money and buy a death cert or 2.
Luckily they died in Victoria so it is instant (no waiting for the postman ;) )
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I've just had another look at google maps streetview. The house is a fair way from the road so not clear, but it doesn't look very old to me. There appears to be a roofless house or barn beside it.
Have you had a look across the road at the view they would have seen - it's gorgeous.
Yes, presumably tenant farmers. There is probably a way to find out who owned the land, but that would probably need a thread of it's own.
Pleased to be of some help. I haven't had a good map search to get my teeth into for ages. THose NLS maps are fabulous - I love searching through them. I hope your friend will be excited by what you have found for her.
There is still the mystery of their address on the 1841 census -'Innertown'. The children's births may help you there.
Yes you definitely need those Vic d/cs. You can get wrong information on d/cs of course - I have several wrong mother's (for some reason) on Australian d/cs - just something to keep in mind if things don't add up.
If you start another thread looking for the children's births/baptisms let me know - I'll be interested to follow it. ;)
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Thanks Ruskie.
I downloaded John's Death cert - his parents are "unknown" - oh well it was worth a try. His son is the informant.
Will start a new thread about the birth's of the children, I can't find them on Scotlands people. I am beginning to wonder if Jessie had another name.
Thanks again, that map resource is fabulous.
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I can see mention of Innertown on the internet but any map just points me to an area with absolutely nothing on it - apart from farmland. I can see a path leading to nothing, so perhaps there was a farmstead in the area at some time in the past.
Shame about no parents for John, but that is still worthwhile downloading. Trouble is when families emigrate they must leave their pasts behind and never mention parents, as there are often blanks.
Do you have John and Jessie's marriage back in Scotland? John's birth? Small communities so they should be there somewhere. Yes, Jessie could have been Jean or Janet/Jannet/Jannett etc etc. Scottish used lots of interchangable names.
As well as help finding the children, you might as well see if anyone can find John and Jessie's families. I have had fairly detailed information on some old PRs and some pretty basic - I have no idea about the records in Orkney at this time.
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Well the Scottish naming pattern didn't help me. >:(
However your wonderful article did give me another child "William". I didn't have him, and he is listed with his brother John on the death cert. The article did make me wonder if the families from Orkney stayed in touch.
I haven't found anything for John and Jessie Isbister on Scotlandspeople. Makes me think she had another name. and with their children having such common names it is hard to find a birth for them that I can pin down.
oh well the hunt is still on.
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This may of some interest:
http://www.orkneyjar.com/placenames/pl-hoose.htm
Imber
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That's a really interesting site Imber. :)
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Don't think I have seen this link mentioned www.orkneyfhs.co.uk/sfndocs/6/6.pdf - page 17. Same lady as before from the previous link that Ruskie included. (Ruskie, you done brilliant on this one ;)).
Mention on this link of a 1821 census. From this, possibilities mentioned for Janet with her family in 1821 and also some clues for John.
Just as a by and by, and something Ruskie mentioned earlier which I just wanted to highlight as it is relevant when researching back for women. In Scotland, women never legally 'lost' their maiden name when they married. This is the reason that they used their maiden name frequently: gravestones for man and wife, you will find wife with her maiden name; earlier censuses in particular, very common for a married/widowed woman to show under her maiden name; highly useful feature on SP when searching for deaths of married women is the fact that you are able to search with both the married and maiden surnames.
Monica :)
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Thanks Monica. ;D It was great fun looking over all the maps doing a bit of detective work. Do you have any thoughts about 'Innertown' where the family lived in 1841? I can't find any settlements at all in the area.
Ted has started a couple of new threads related to this search - one to see if she can get a photo of what we believe might be 'Crya', and another to search for the children's births/baptisms. I have had a bit of an attempt at helping, but I'm sure you will be able to make some more progress. There are a couple of useful looking links posted by Skoosh which may help.
It's quite late here for me so I will be signing off in a minute.
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Skoosh has posted this on the other post for the children www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,635983.0.html (we crossed over posts, Ruskie :P Must be getting late for you!)
Ted, a couple of sites for you,
http://www.cursiter.com/
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/ORKNEY/2012-08
Skoosh.
cursiter.com is perfect for what you are trying to do, although there may be some gaps (pity but happens).
Just trying to check on the potential parents for Janet Stockan from that link above - Alexander and Janet Muir. I can see this http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=kosmoid&id=I12669 A number of these children's details show here www.cursiter.com/txt-exe-files/Stokan.txt however, can't see an entry for Janet. Wonder when Janet Muir married Alexander Stockan?
Monica
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...Do you have any thoughts about 'Innertown' where the family lived in 1841? I can't find any settlements at all in the area.
There looks to be over 140 people showing as living in Innertown at the time of the 1841 census....however, Innertown doesn't show in 1851 or 1861 (only checked those two) :-\
Included on this Innertown census apart from the Isbister family, there is this family that I thought might connect to John's wife, Janet Sto(c)kan from what we are potentially finding:
Alexander Stokan 55 farmer
Janet Stokan 55
Mary Stokan 25
John Stokan 20
James Stokan 15
William Brown 14
Address: Innertown, Stromness
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There is a photo here on this brilliant growing resource www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1076895 See also here www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=39780303 for general results with 'Crya' on search term. The map at the bottom is key for the location of the photos. Try searching for different names. You might not get the exact place (sometimes yes!) but often enough in these very remote places, you get close enough to places via the photos to get a good feel, such as here maybe www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1077180
What I found of interest is starting to connect some of the name place you have been discussing and the new ones coming along. If you click on the small at the bottom I can see the map point for Crya and also place names that likely connect to Dale and mentions on that 1821 census. Innertown/Outertown, at a guess likely the areas around what we are seeing for Dale/Crya etc.
Monica
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Hi there, dont want to butt in, Ruskie has done such a good job, I was reading the book "The Breckness Estate " last night, Creya was part of the estate owned by the Breckness Estate, at Skaill House in Sandwick (www.skaillhouse.co.uk ) who owned a lot of the land on what we call " the west mainland " stretching down from Sandwick to Stromness and on to Finstown, it was tenanted by Sinclairs for most of the time, so the Isbisters were probably tenant farmers for a short while in the mid 1800,s, Innertown and Outertown are small areas just outside Stromness,both were divided into small crofts, mostly owned by the estate each with their own population and overlook the islands of Hoy and Graemsay, there is a photo and map in the book, apparently the house of Creya still exists but has been empty for a while
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Hi there, dont want to butt in,
You are more than welcome to contribute (there is no such thing as butting in ;) ) especially with such interesting information. :) I think that snippets like that really add to the whole picture and I'm sure Ted's friend will be interested.
Monica - the Stokan family you found in Innertown look likely to be related to Janet/Jessie. I think that it would be quite possible to put these people into family groups as the populations were so small. (depending on how far Ted wants to take the search)
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outertown and innertown from an old map, i was out there yesterday, couldnt find the house of creya, asked the farmer at feolquoy and he had no idea where it was and he has lived there all his life so i reckon the house is gone, it has a fantastic view though
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Yes! Innertown is found! ;D And confirmation that Crya is Creya on the NLS map. Looking at google maps there does look to still be a house in the vicinity of 'Creya' today.
Scenery looks breathtaking - you are lucky to have been able to visit akc!
Ted has posted a different thread asking for photos - I don't suppose you took any while you were there? There's not much detail to be seen on google maps - you would probably need to drive up the driveway to get closer to the house to take a decent photo. I would have liked to have known if I am right in having spotted a roofless building close to the current house. Wondering if this may be an old house, or if it is just a barn.
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Wow thank you so much for all everyone has done about finding Creya.
akc - thank you for the visit and asking the farmer.
Thank you Monica for the help with the maps and locations and for finding the Stockens in 1841. I wonder how John and Jessie felt leaving family behind for the other side of the world.
Luv Ted
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I would be sad to leave such a beautiful place. I think many (most?) immigrants must have been unaware of the harsh conditions that awaited them. I'm sure some did have better lives, and others ... possibly not. :-\
The trip alone for the Isbisters must have been unimaginably hellish and every day they must have regretted ever setting out on the voyage.
I'm sure every family has a different story about how they fared after arrival. Have you checked Trove for any mentions of the Isbisters? There may be something there which gives you some clues ...
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this cottage was very close to where creya would have been, most cottages were very similar to this one a long but and ben with the byre on the end
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Great photo, akc :) Sunny there too today ;)
Monica
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... but and ben ...
I have learned something new today. ;D Great picture.
Those derelict cottages look ripe for a makeover to me. ;)
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... but and ben ...
I have learned something new today. ;D Great picture.
Those derelict cottages look ripe for a makeover to me. ;)
That was my thinking to Ruskie. Won't show my hubby he thinks retiring to the Orkney's would be wonderful and he is into renovating too. :o
Maybe John and Jessie enjoyed the weather over here when they emigrated. At least it doesn't snow in Melbourne (well only once in approx 10 years and not so you can make snowballs).
By the way I had about 10 minutes last night to have a look at Jessie and John's life over here. All the children who lived did well (3 died - 2 because of the horrific voyage), but John only lived for 12 years over here. Jessie however, lived til the ripe old age of 90. ;D
Luv Ted
PS Thank you akc for the photo it is perfect for what I am trying to write for my friend when I have the time. :(
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Won't show my hubby he thinks retiring to the Orkney's would be wonderful and he is into renovating too. :o
Sounds like a great plan to me. I've never been to Orkney, but I'm sure I would love it.
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the photo,s dont do it justice folks, its in one of the most picturesque places in orkney, we had a beautiful walk along the beach and it was such a beautiful day, most of the people emigrated back then because the families were so big, there just was not enough land for everybody, most never returned, there are a lot of nice photos on this website which will give you an idea of orkney
http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/
akc
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.... most of the people emigrated back then because the families were so big, there just was not enough land for everybody, most never returned...
akc
I thought there may have been other reasons that so many left:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
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I thought it was probably because of the Clearances too, and also a change in Australian Government policy
On 4 August 1852 in Liverpool, 795 migrants, predominantly Highland Scots, boarded the vessel, the Ticonderoga. With a huge labour shortage in the Australian colony, brought about by the discovery of Gold in New South Wales in 1851, and the relaxation of emigration rules regarding the number of children allowed to travel, thousands of emigrants clamored for transport to Victoria.
Introduction in an article about the "Ticonderoga"
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That makes sense Ted.
An interesting article here:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/australia/scotaus3.htm
It's always good to have a bit of background information. :)