"No Inclination To Mix With Strangers": Marriage Patterns Among Highland Scots Migrants To Cape Breton and New Zealand, 1800-1916

Abstract

This article examines the structure and persistence of three large kin groups over five generations. These groups emigrated from Highland Scotland to Cape Breton, Canada, between 1800 and 1830 and subsequently to Waipu, in New Zealand, in the 1850's. They were characterised by extensive cousin and brother-sister exchange marriages, forms of marriage which, it is argued, were extant in Scotland in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Brother-sister exchange marriages re mained very common in the first and second generation New Zealand-born, but cousin marriage occurred far less frequently in these generations. However, when the marriages of groups of cousins are examined, it is found that even apparently exogamous marriages commonly contributed to the formation of new, intensely inter-related kin groups. This article concludes that extensive kin ties provided a source of material and emotional support for emigrants facing dislocation and subsequent colonization.

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