Blair Collection > Place names in Strathbogie, with notes historical, antiquarian and descriptive

Place Names in StratJihooie.
bellion, and all such documents as contain place
names which have evidently been supplied by-
local officials. Thirdly, the old ' Inquisitions '
must be considered more uncertain, because they
date only from the beginning of the i6th century,
and many of them have suffered in transcription,
or the original documents have been incorrect.
Not a few of them are, however, reliable, and
may be accepted as corroborative of earlier writ-
ings. Fourthly, we have various Record Office
publications, Sheriff and other Court Books, and
comparatively late ecclesiastical records. The
Poll-Book of Aberdeenshire, of date 1696, also
comes under the class of authorities, which gives,
without much care, the popular pronunciation at
a comparatively late period. Fifthly, the forms
of names given in old histories or narratives are
interesting, but for the most part they are purely
arbitrary. These seem to me to be the chief
sources of information in regard to the old forms
of names, arranged according to their value, as
I find them applying to the north-eastern
counties.
Every student of place names will, no doubt,
adopt such methods of investigation as he may
find most suitable to the locality, and the material
he has to work upon. There are, however, cer-
tain facts concerning place names, especially
noticeable in the lowlands, which, to a certain
extent, must guide us in our researches into the