Outside of watching the TV Series Outlanders for its historical time-travel into the Scottish Highlands in the 1700s (or, of course, reading the novels by Diana Gabaldon’s on which the series is based), our best method for learning about the people and places of the time is through resources on the Internet. This may be a less entertaining way, but it can be rewarding. In researching the Scottish background about the Fleming Family, we have dug into several tremendous resources about Scotland’s past that includes historical accounts, maps, drawings and images, and fiction.

The Scots, with great foresight, undertook two extensive and detailed accounts of the geography, population, economy and society in the late 1790s and mid-1800s. The First (or Old) Statistical Account of Scotland (1792-99) in 21 volumes was compiled by Sir John Sinclair who engaged over 900 ministers in the parishes to report on their areas guided by his questions. The Second (or New) Statistical Account of Scotland (1834-45) was done for the Society for the Benefit of the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy in Scotland and was produced similarly.

Both may be searched and read in digital format through Statistical Accounts of Scotland Online, a superbly rich website. Use the clickable map to zoom into a county and then browse from the list for a parish, or use a keyword search. Locating the parish – for example, Logierait – leads to links to the digitized images in the sections in the Old and New Statistical Accounts. This resource was created by EDINA, a division of the University of Edinburgh’s Information Services. Searching and viewing are free, but a fee-based subscription is needed to have access to transcripts, downloads, printing, enhanced searching, and other personalized features.

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