Scottish History The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft team gratefully acknowledge the help of many institutions and people.

• The main research project, from February 2001 to January 2003, was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
• A small research grant from the British Academy allowed the researchers to improve the information about people involved in witchcraft prosecution.
• Computing support and application development were provided by Computing Services, The University of Edinburgh. Ed Dee (Information Tools Team) built the Microsoft Access database and application used to collect the data, Charlotte Moon (Information Tools Team) built the ColdFusion application, web interface, graphs and maps used to display the data, and Tim Riley (Data Library) provided the parish and county boundary data files. The web pages are hosted on the Computing Services ColdFusion server, using Microsoft SQL Server as the back-end database.
• We offer many thanks to the staff at the National Archives of Scotland. This project could not have been completed without their support and help. We worked in the NAS for nearly 19 months. They provided specialist advice when needed and they cheerfully delivered all the manuscripts we consulted to our desks. Thank you.
• During the course of research into the local aspects of witchcraft and witch prosecution, we visited many local archives, including: Ayshire Archives, Dundee City Archives, Glasgow City Archives, Orkney Archives, St Andrews University Library, and Stirling Council Archives. The staff at these archives were extremely helpful and directed us to many important sources for our study.
• Stuart Macdonald acted as a consultant to the project. By kindly donating us a copy of his Scottish Witch Hunt Data Base, he helped us get started with a run rather than a crawl.
• Michaele Gardner designed a database for Lauren Martin's Ph.D. thesis that we used as a prototype for the project database.
• Michael Wasser provided us with detailed corrections and additions to Larner et al.'s A Source-Book of Scottish Witchcraft. His more accurate references made it easier for us to find relevant source materials, thereby allowing us to cover more material for the project.
• Eila Williamson, a researcher for the project 'Records of Early English Drama' provided the project with many references from presbytery, kirk session and burgh court records. She has greatly expanded our coverage of local documents.
• Alastair Hendry very kindly donated a copy of his 'Calendar of Witchcraft Cases of Ayrshire' to the project. He has spent many years combing the local records of Ayrshire and has found many local witchcraft suspects that would have gone undiscovered by the project.
• Martin Rackwitz provided us with many references to witchcraft suspects and people's attitudes to witchcraft belief and witch-hunting from early travellers' accounts of Scotland.
• Elizabeth Ewan provided the project with many references to witchcraft that she encountered while conducting research into slander cases.
• Kelly Walker helped us at the beginning of the project with references and help at the National Archives of Scotland.
• Laura Stewart provided us with references to witchcraft in the Edinburgh City Archives.
• Lizanne Henderson provided us with references to witches in Dumfries and shared her interpretations with us.
• Kenneth Wright provided us with some new information about witchcraft suspects from Bo'ness.
• John G. Harrison gave us information about the witch of Monzie.
• Aonghas MacCoinnich told us about some printed sources.
• Fiona Scharlaw provided the project with a detailed account of documents held locally in Angus.
• Robert Landrum gave us references from presbytery minutes and burgh accounts.
• John Ballantyne provided a reference to witchcraft information in the Rose of Kilravock Papers.
• Alexander Sutherland gave us a wealth of information about witchcraft cases from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
• Gregory Durston told us about a pamphlet that mentions a Scottish witch-finder being brought to Newcastle.
• Professor Geoffrey Barrow identified a number of obscure place-names for us.

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Survey of Scottish Witchcraft,
Scottish History, School of History and Classics,
The University of Edinburgh,
17 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh, EH8 9LN

Page last updated Thursday, 13-Mar-2008 09:24:47 GMT by Kaye Brewster
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