David Oal

Honeyman Old's father was David Oal and this conforms to the Scottish norm as Honeyman's eldest son was David as well.  He was born in Oucorn to George Oall with no mother mentioned, as was often the case in the early records.  Oucorn is another of those obscure places with a variable name and took a while to locate.  When it was found it was a stone's throw away from Thura, another of the farms of concern to us.  David Ole was in Thura when he married Elizabeth or Eliza Durran. 

Did you notice the four different spellings of my surname in that previous paragraph?  They are all as found in the records, which is why some records can go undetected under conventional searching techniques.

David was obviously a farmer or a farm worker but it isn't clear from the records.  What can be gleaned from other records is that there was an upper class in the area, landowners who were quite distinct from the crofters who worked the land and could be tenants with a degree of autonomy.

More can be found out about the Caithness crofts here, including Thura and Auchorn.