Bill Lawson BL, ASGRA, FSA(Scot)

The genealogy resource at Hebrides People, known as ‘Cò Leis Thu?’, is based on over 60 years of research by Bill Lawson.

Bill Lawson was born in Stirling and grew up in Ayrshire, where he attended Prestwick High School and Ayr Academy. Bill studied Law at Glasgow University and trained as a Chartered Surveyor. He taught Law in Paisley for eighteen years. All those years his holidays were spent in Harris, and it was then that his interest in the genealogies of the Western Isles started.

In 1981 he became the Project Leader of the Integrated Development Programme, a European-funded programme for the Western Isles. This gave him the chance to move to the Western Isles, and when the programme finished he settled in the village of Northton in Harris, where he took over and renovated the village school and schoolhouse.

Aware that the older people, the bearers of the genealogies, were getting fewer and fewer, he began to compile family histories from their knowledge, and also from the records at Register House in Edinburgh. His work expanded to the emigration areas of North America and Australia. Bill learned Gaelic, which was essential for his work in gathering the genealogies.

Cò leis thu?

From the Old School House, Bill started his company, ‘Cò Leis Thu?’ (meaning ‘Who you belong to?’) and for twelve years he and his late wife, Chris, operated a family history tracing service. During this time, Bill also spent a number of years on the Crofters’ Commission.

The ‘Cò Leis Thu?’ genealogy research service has now been passed on to Northton Heritage Trust which is based at Hebrides People Visitor Centre in Northton, Harris. As Bill is a consultant to the Trust, this arrangement allows him to continue with new research into the emigration areas in Canada and Australia, and also allows him to write and publish from his base in Harris.