Who We Are

We started in 1981, when a group of people met to share an interest in local history.  We walked over most of our area - the parish of Glenorchy and Inishail - found deserted settlements and pathways, made rough surveys and notes, asked older residents for their memories, and generally got to know the landscape, past and present.

We try to share what we know with the community, new and old, with meetings, walks, publications and ready access to the archives. What we are not, is a society for genealogical or family research - our interests are in the wider area, places as well as people.

The membership at present is 49 families, that is, about 65 people.  By the nature of the population, we are mostly in the older age range, retired or nearly so, with time to spend on our investigations.  About a quarter of the membership will be active on projects, personal or communal; about a half will come to talks or walks if we organise them; the other quarter stay members because they are interested, but are perhaps getting older, or are still in full-time work, or live too far away, or have too many other interests.  We are noted for being a friendly, welcoming organisation, and have a lot of support within the community.

What We Do

• Walks - we organise these locally to historical sites.

• Trips - we have occasional trips further afield.

• Talks - we have three or four speakers for informal talks over the winter, most years, on topics requested by members.

• Research - we research the history of the area, using readily available sources such as old parish records, as well as less easily reached documents such as the Breadalbane Muniments, for which we have to travel to Edinburgh.

• Recording - we have recorded all the older inscriptions in the burial grounds of the parish.

• Show - we have a stand at the annual Dalmally Show, where we present the current topic of research.

• Publish - we have published several fruits of our work - see the publications list below.

• Information retrieval - we are in the process of entering our data into a local parish database, and of typing up old documents, in order to make our information easily available.

• Responding to queries - we try to reply to e-mail and other enquiries; though we are not able to undertake family searches, we are happy to pass on information we may have collected from local sources.  Most people have access to census and other material, and most family researchers know more than we do.  We can sometimes help by attaching a name to a place, or filling in a gap.

We are also often the first point of contact for matters of local historical interest from other societies and government bodies.

How to contact us 
Telephone 01838 200 264, or e-mail thbaney@tinyworld.co.uk or write to Orchy Bheag, Dalmally, Argyll PA33 1AX

Publications
(Available from Orchy Bheag, as above.  Cheques with order, made payable to Dalmally Historical Association.

• Dalmally, the Story of a Highland Village. Ed M Borrett. Published 2000. £4.50 including postage

• Inscriptions in the Burial Grounds of the Parish of Glenorchy and Inishail. Paper £15; disc £10

• The Quern: The Journal of the Dalmally Historical Association. Vol. 2, Summer 2004. £3.00 including postage

• The Quern: The Journal of the Dalmally Historical Association. Vol. 3, Summer 2005. £4.00 including postage

• The Quern: The Journal of the Dalmally Historical Association. Vol. 4, Summer 2006. £4.00 including postage

• Glenorchy Kirk. 1999.  £2.50 including postage

• St Conan's Well, Dalmally. 1992. £2.50 including postage

We also have a few copies of Mary McGrigor’s Rob Roy's Country at £15 including postage
 

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