The Burgar/Burgess families in Shetland
The story of the Early Burgar family In Shetland to about 1750
The earliest recorded Burgars lived in Yell and Fetlar in the 1500s and early 1600s, but there was no long term settlement there. By the mid-1600s there were Burgar families in Dunrossness especially around Hillwell, which may be regarded as the ancestral home of the Burgar family in Shetland.
The first person to be firmly recorded as living in Dunrossness was George Burgar (born about 1630 - died before 1712). He is probably the ancestor of all present day Burgar/Burger/Burgess derived from the Shetland Isles.
I have tried to sift through the various documents that I have obtained from the Shetland Record Office, and propose family relationships. For convenience, I have considered documents in small time slots and then built up more and more complex family trees.
The Dunrossness Church registers for baptisms, marriages and death do not start before 1750 so it is difficult to prove how family trees from then link backwards to George Burgar (born in about 1630). However, in some cases it is possible to indicate how the Burgar in the 1750s are linked to this George Burgar.