Our History

The early years

When Bill Lawson began to collect information of the families of the Outer Hebrides he was faced with the challenge of how to preserve the information he was gathering. There was also the problem of differentiating between the large numbers of persons of the same name. His solution was to begin a saturation coverage of all the families of the Islands, and to record them in family chart form. Meet Bill.

Today

Hebrides People is a purpose-built visitor centre with exhibitions and a gift shop. It houses the archive, and employs three people. Find out more.

The future

An exciting future is planned. Following a recent successful Scottish Land Fund application, the community will purchase the land and buildings around the current Visitor Centre and the Old Schoolhouse where Bill lives, adding new exhibitions and a much needed café.

The research housed at ‘Cò Leis Thu?’ is based both on written records and oral tradition.

Written records were generally poorly kept in the Western Isles, and so oral tradition is an invaluable addition to incomplete and inconsistent written evidence.

Gaelic oral tradition relating to families, which was until relatively recently a strong part in the communities of the Western Isles, was collected and recorded by Bill Lawson over the course of his 60 years of research. Find out more.