The Burgar/Burgess families in Shetland

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The Communicants List of 1749.

Introduction to the Communicants List of 1749

The Rev. John Mill was the Minister Dunrossness..  At this time the Dunrossness Church served Dunrossness itself, and the areas  of Sandwick and  Cunningsburgh.  The latter two areas eventually became parishes in their own right.

For some reason the Rev. John Mill decided to compile a list of all his Parishioners. This may have been to enable him to collect all the tithes that were due to him.  He entered the names of the Communicants into a very small notebook (about 5"x3"). Since paper was valuable at the time, Rev. Mill did not waste space on the pages. The names are entered under Parish and Place name. Under these headings the names of the persons are entered in up to 3 columns. Sometimes it is not clear which place a person in Columns 2 or 3 belongs to.

See Transcription of Communicants List

Each Parish was broken down into smaller areas (Diets).  In Dunrossness these Diets generally represented a single settlement (place) within the parish. Thus the Diet and place are often the same e.g. Diet of Hillwell and the settlement called Hillwell.  In Cunningsburgh Parish the Diets sometimes contained up to three settlements.

It is unclear as to the age of the persons in the List. It is thought that younger children would not be present as Communicants.  From a survey of the Dunrossness Marriage register, which has marriages for 1754-1756, it is thought that the persons listed would be above 14 years of age.  However, the actual age may be lesser or greater than this.

Apart from the names of persons there are other symbols appended to a person's name. These are not shown in the transcription, but appear in the original list. 

See meaning of symbols in the List

It is assumed that the appendage 'Elder'  refer to the person being an Elder of the Church. There are 21 persons with this appendage in Dunrossness, all of them being males. (There are two males with the status of 'Eldr' in Cunnisburgh, but in this case it seems to be used to distinguish between 2 persons of different ages).

In 'The Diary of Rev. Mills' it is stated that when Elders were reappointed in 1768 there were 28 for Dunrossness Parish. Thus it would not be unreasonable to think that the numbers of Elders mentioned above would be of the correct order of magnitude.

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