About

The thrust of my doctoral studies measured and reinterpreted the constituency of the late Jacobite movement during the Rising of 1745-6. Building and utilizing a prosopographic database (JDB1745) to compile and document as many names as can be connected with the final rising, a systematic analysis of the data was undertaken to present a fresh social history of those who participated in Jacobite-related activity during the Forty-five. Taken directly from the database, my final thesis was a snapshot of over 15,000 entries collated to explore motivation, demographics, recruitment, and the consequences of involvement in that insurgency.

My continuing research extends the database into its next stage, which includes three independent sub-projects: one, further transcription and analysis of primary sources to find new evidence of Jacobite-connected persona; two, creation of a public beta with a newly-coded architecture that allows controlled external participation; and three, assembling a multidisciplinary team of scholars interested in engaging with data curation and contributing to the database using their respective areas of expertise. Interested parties are very welcome to connect as desired.

In addition to JDB1745, I am currently working on several other connected resources for the Digital Humanities, including a programme of licensing out primary source material for inclusion within an electronic research portal and also the establishment of a Virtual Research Environment for historical and genealogical study related to Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism.