As with the other books in Dr. David Dobson's "Scottish People" series, this volume identifies thousands of individuals who were living in a Scottish burgh at the time of significant Scottish immigration to North America. In Glasgow's case the political union of Scotland and England in 1707 resulted in a major expansion of the town's overseas trade and the stimulation of industry in and around it. By 1740 Glasgow merchants dominated the Virginia tobacco trade; their merchant companies had settled personnel along the American eastern seaboard and in the West Indies, distributing Scottish goods and transhipping tobacco for the continental market. The colonies also attracted individual farmers, physicians, tutors, and other professional workers and skilled craftsmen, who, along with the Glasgow merchant class, dominated the town council as burgesses.