The
Morisons
came
to Comrie, Perthshire, originally from Argyllshire in the 1500s.
Donald Morison was the first known Morison in Comrie. He lived
at Auchinner in Glen Artney. He was a "Reader" in the
church there. His descendants remained in Auchinner and spread
into other nearby villages over the generations that followed.
The families were mainly sheep farmers, and their ancestors had
originally migrated into Comrie from Appin and Kintyre in Argyllshire
in the early 1500's. Other related families continued to migrate
from those parts on into the late 1700's. Many of the families
moved to other areas or migrated overseas during the upheavals
of the early 1700's. All
the Comrie Morisons were related in one way or another. There
are no Morisons, in the male line, left in Comrie now.
 Our
earliest traceable ancestor appears to have been
JAMES MORISON who
was born about 1690 in Auchinner, Glen Artney, a Parish of Comrie,
Scotland.
He
married ELISABETH MCKIALL.
It
has been a very difficult task to search this part of the family
before 1855. After this date, it became compulsory for marriages,
deaths and births to be registered. It was not helped by the
fact that labourers, including younger sons of farmers did not,
as a rule, register the births of their children because it cost
them money. They did tend to register their marriages however,
because otherwise the Kirk would have punished them. It was considered
a terrible sin to have children outside of Marriage.
By
1804 there was only one family of Morrisons left up in Glen Lednock
from the original 7 or 8 large family communes that had been there.
They were sheep farmers in that glen. It is a very beautiful place.
Very bleak in winter !! They must have had a very hard life.
Because
there were more than one family group living in these communes,
the women very often changed their Christian names after they
were married in order to differentiate between the various other
family members. An example: A Margaret Janet McNeil, from
Crieff changed her name after she was married. She became Christian
Morrison, because her Mother-in-law was a Janet Morrison
and her sister-in-law was a Margaret Morrison. As they were all
living at the same farm, it was a way of identification.
In
the 1841 census there were only two farms left in Comrie with
the name of Morrison attached to them. The adjudicator of that
census for Comrie said that a lot of the farmers had gone to Australia
between 1830 and 1841. All of the population of Comrie were Gaelic
speaking and English did not start appearing until the 1820,s.
Even in the 1901 census, at least 80% of the population were bilingual
in Gaelic and English.
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