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A few years ago I came across "Caroline" as a middle or forename in certain Canadian MacKenzies a generation away from Scotland, beginning in the 1820s. I failed to find a Caroline family member they could have been named for, and it occured to me it was an uncommon forename in late 18th century generally. Freecen had just completed their transcription of the 1841 census, so I did a search to try to see if I could see what year bracket it came in to common use.

Pretty certain it was a name to honour the "Princess Diana" of her day, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, see http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Queen-Caroline/

Ages over 15 were rounded down to the nearest five year multiple, but allowing for +/-2 years 1838, 1833, and 1828 it was possible to extract them all. Some small error as a few enumerators ignored the rounding down rule, but should not be more than a handful each year.

Historically there always were a few Carolines in U.K, but for the most part looks to have been a name that came with the infamous princess. I stopped with ones born 1791 or earlie, as older than that deaths would throw it off...

1792-1796    124
1797-1801    201
1802-1806    313
1807-1811    482
1812-1816    780
1817-1821    1597
1822-1826    2534
1827-1831    2342
1832-1836    2459
1837-1841    2345

She is down as Chirsty in 1901 as well on Findmypast and Scotlandspeople.
Isobel

Hee hee! And in 1881 she is "Cathrine"!

Gaelic name was Ciorstaig, often women with the name show up in records as "Christian".

I see [Bella] has a brother Duncan. Could he be the husband of Christy Campbell?

Great stuff, thanks Isobel for the extra details that nail the family down. A search of the Civil Registration Indexes last night looking for identity of Christy's husband had me suspect he was not Duncan, but an older brother, Alexander, married 1889 in Lochbroom to Christina Munro. But this morning looking again cannot see an Alexander in earlier censuses!

Records this period get a bit confusing as Coigach was part of the Parish of Lochbroom, but a few years after the start of Civil Registration, 1857 if I recall, the Registration District was split, the area generally known as "the Aird of Coigach", being the large peninsular area in the north-west (including Polglass) became Registry District of Coigach, however the south-east area of Coigach, including the most populous town, Ullapool, became part of the Registry area of Lochbroom. Many of the Coigach familys had marriages at Ullapool where there was a full time resident Minister.

Jacqui, your friend might be interested to see among the Highland soup of his ancestors were others with a military background, and relavent at this time when we are all thinking of the plight of refugees, the Coigach Stewarts. quoting a Coigach descendant, John MacLeod;

Various families came into the area following the '45, including the Stewarts, a party of whom (women included!) escaped from the battlefield of Culloden and fled north through the hills until they reached the Oykel valley at Tutim. There one of the women is buried in the graveyard above the road. The party turned West and eventually settled in Coigach. Originally from the Appin area, all the Stewarts in Coigach are descended from those settlers.

Anyone stumbling across this thread while searching for George Simpson, I have now gathered the data in to a file on my website, additions and corrections welcome; http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~coigach/ullapool_simpson.htm