1811 Armadale Census

The 1811 census for the parish of Farr has survived and is available to view at the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness, Scotland (Ref: HCA/D269/1). A national census has been taken in Great Britain every ten years since 1801. However prior to 1841 most of the census records were either lost or destroyed after they had served their purpose. It is therefore quite rare to find a census from 1801, 1811, 1821 or 1831. The 1811 census unfortunately did not include ages and it only included the name of the head of the house. It also included whether the family was employed in agriculture or trade and how many males and females were living in the house. I have in my possession copies of the entire 1811 census for the parish of Farr but below I have only included the segment for the village of Armadale, which includes my ancestor Alex Munro.

One possibility is that the second Alex Munro in Armadale was a nephew of my ancestor Alex Munro in Armadale. The second Alex Munro's father, Hugh, would therefore have been the brother of my ancestor Alex Munro. I ruled out some time ago was that this was the brothers Hugh and Alexander Munro born in 1756 and 1758 respectively, in the farmstead of Clair, parish of Kiltearn, Ross-shire. The reason this was ruled out was because the parish marriage record for their father, who was also called Alexander Munro, from 1750 in the parish of Kiltearn, shows that his cautioner for the marriage was Hugh Munro the tacksman in Teanoird, who was probably his father, and this Hugh Munro who was the tacksman has been confirmed as being a member of the Munro of Foulis family, and Y-DNA testing has confirmed that my ancestor Alexander Munro of Armadale was not paternally descended from the Munro of Foulis family. 

Another possibility is that as Alexander Munro of Armadale could have been the Sergeant Alexander Munro of the 76th and 42nd Regiments who was born sometime between 1735 and 1744, and whose wife Jane Munro died in 1780, that the Hugh Munro who was father of the second Alexander Munro could have been a son from this first marriage of Alexander Munro. This would mean that the second Alex Munro on the 1811 census was the grandson of my ancestor Alexander Munro of Armadale and named after him.

The Sergeant Alexander Munro and his wife Jane or Janet Munro may have come from the parish of Resolis, Ross-shire, as explained on page: Possible parish and estate records (part 1). Their five children were: Elen and John who were twins baptised 17 May 1767 and who may have stayed in America after the death of their mother there in 1780 as two children are mentioned as being present at the time, an unnamed child baptised 29 August 1768 who could have been Hugh as mentioned above, Lillias baptised 5 October 1770 who appears to have remained in the parish of Resolis, married and had children there, and Jannat baptised 7 June 1773 who as the youngest child could have been the third female in Alexander Munro of Armadale's house on the 1811 census. 

It is also perfectly possible that the second Alex Munro in Armadale was not related and that he simply moved there because that was where his wife Mary Mackay was from, but then it is interesting to speculate why the two Alex Munro households were listed together on the census. Most of these pre-1841 census and rental records listed related families and family members together. I did once find a family tree on Ancestry for a Munro family in New Zealand who descend from this second Alex Munro in Armadale, but the tree owner was no longer active and did not reply to my messages. All it would take is for one of their male Munro family members to take part in the Y-DNA testing and we would be able to confirm if the two Alex Munros were related. Other descendants of the second Alex Munro moved to Canada.