About this site

This site is a personal project exploring the data from the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, a remarkable piece of academic research that documented the lives of people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736.

The Original Survey

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft was created by Dr Julian Goodare, Dr Louise Yeoman, Dr Joyce Miller and Lauren Martin, with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. The project systematically gathered and recorded information about approximately 3,800 accused individuals from historical archives across Scotland, creating one of the most comprehensive databases of its kind.

The original survey website and database, hosted by the University of Edinburgh, can be explored via the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft website, with an interactive map interface available at the Scottish Witchcraft Map. The raw data is openly available to download from the University of Edinburgh Data Share under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

This Site

This site uses the same underlying data to explore what additional analysis and insights might be possible using modern AI and machine learning techniques — looking at patterns in accusations, outcomes, confessions and geographic distribution that might not be immediately visible in the raw data.

It is an independent personal project and has no affiliation with the University of Edinburgh or the original survey team.