A collection of my thoughts on the existing structure of the Scotland Project and how the system could be developed with teams/categories etc. A learning process for me !

Contents 1 Outstanding Queries 2 Project Structure 2.1 Comparison of existing team structures 3 Region Structure (Counties Team)

Outstanding Queries

1. how do we count how many profiles relate to England / Scotland? [Use Wikitree+ Location - check spelling variations]
2. how many members of the England Project / Scotland Project ?
3. split as Highlands & Island, Central, Lowlands? who else does this?

Project Structure

Apart from a question of scale there would appear to be no reason not to model the project on the extremely successful England Project. For comparison the total profiles entries for England & Scotland are:

Country	Births	Deaths	Marriages
Scotland	274936	90069	44728
England	1364301	579053	248661

in each case England has about 5-6 times as many profiles as Scotland.

Comparison of existing team structures

Team	England	Scotland	Comments
Orphan	Established	....	Perhaps could be a UK project?
Profile Improvements	Established
Counties	Established	to be developed?
Categories	?	?
Help Desk	Developing		Perhaps could be a UK project?
Managed Profiles	Established	?
Topics	?
Membership	?
Clans	....	Established

Region Structure (Counties Team)

Scotland is divided into a number of counties, which have changed over the years. It appears best to base the county structure on those in place for the years 1890-1975, as based on Wikipedia, for similar reasons to those outlined in the England Project ^[1]:

Most of the Scottish Counties are not populated by enough profiles to warrant a team (or even a single team member) assigned to looking after them. It would appear to be far more sensible to group counties into areas similar to the English Regions, but without necessarily having separate "mentors" for the individual counties. In the table below I have listed potential new areas based loosely on those in effect for local government areas between 1973-1996 Wikipedia.

County	Births	Deaths	Marriages	Potential New Area	Current Mentor
Aberdeenshire	16949	5871	2651	Grampian	Michael Thomas
Angus / Forfarshire	10957	3915	1905	Tayside	Jack Blair
Argyllshire + mispellings	2474	370	194	Strathclyde	Allan Stuart
Ayrshire	18186	6002	3223	Strathclyde	Bobbie Hall
Banffshire	4032	1137	597	Grampian
Berwickshire	3627	941	539	Borders	Peter Cameron
Bute / Buteshire	839	299	121	Strathclyde	Allan Stuart
Caithness	5732	1683	954	Highland	Sir William Arbuthnot
Clackmannanshire	1285	305	182	Central
Dumfriesshire	3246	1196	352	Dumfries & Galloway
Dunbartonshire / Dumbartonshire	2231	880	317	Strathclyde
East Lothian / Haddingtonshire	5319	1137	866	Lothian
Fife / Fifeshire	18751	5759	3319	Fife	Robynne Lozier
Inverness-shire	3913	1081	270	Highland	Susie MacLeod
Kincardineshire	2910	732	446	Grampian	Doug Straiton
Kinross-shire[7]	678	203	87	Tayside	Michael Thomas
Kirkcudbrightshire	1392	441	155	Dumfries & Galloway
Lanarkshire	25251	8549	4067	Strathclyde	Emma MacBeath
Midlothian / Edinburghshire	13748	4741	3010	Lothian	Emma MacBeath
Morayshire / Elginshire	1437	410	173	Islands
Nairnshire[20]	449	109	44	Highland	David Urquhart
Orkney	3445	1117	532	Islands	Robynne Lozier
Peeblesshire	592	190	108	Borders	Bill Graham
Perthshire[7]	1011	2314	1308	Tayside	Michael Thomas
Renfrewshire	7896	2337	1180	Strathclyde	Marty Acks
Ross and Cromarty / Ross-shire	3110	808	363	Highland
Roxburghshire	3842	1246	583	Borders	Allen Clark
Selkirkshire	699	278	121	Borders
Stirlingshire	6886	1918	1072	Central	Maria Maxwell
Sutherland	1665	472	226	Highland	Doug Straiton
West Lothian / Linlithgowshire	4559	1400	687	Lothian	Maria Maxwell
Wigtownshire	1694	468	195	Dumfries & Galloway
Zetland /Shetland,	1784	626	226	Islands	Gillian Thomas

With the proposed groupings the populations become:

Area	Births	Deaths	Marriages
Borders	8760	2655	1351
Central	8171	2223	1254
Dumfries & Galloway	6332	2105	702
Fife	18751	5759	3319
Grampian	23891	7740	3694
Highland	13204	3681	1631
Islands	6666	3290	931
Lothian	23626	7278	4563
Strathclyde	48981	18437	9102
Tayside	21746	6432	3300

Where each new area is of a similar size to the English counties; none is as big as Yorkshire nor much smaller than Herefordshire (although Dumfries & Galloway is very close).

These areas would only be used by the Scotland Project for administering the counties, they would not appear as part of the Regional Category structure (the same as England's) viz:

>>Europe

>>United Kingdom

>>Scotland

>>County1

>>County2

etc..

Each area could have a leader but the existing mentors could remain in place for individual counties if required. The CIB roll-out for Scottish places would be straightforward once team pages have been set up.

Note that with the proposed groupings each area, with the exception of Dumfries & Galloway, already has at least one mentor active within it.

For comparison England's largest and smallest counties have:

County	Births	Deaths	Marriages
Yorkshire	99686	40763	17284
Lancashire	87949	30769	13451
Rutland	9204	6082	1702
Herefordshire	6255	2316	831

....