The material was compiled over a number of years, probably between about 1825 and 1840, and consists of accounts of parishes and families, notes and extracts from printed sources and collections of formal documents, and some original documents and printed items. The complete title of the work was apparently intended to be `Dumbartonshire Illustrated with regard chiefly to its Territorial History and Family Antiquities`, but the work appears never to have been finished (for example, there are no illustrations and the genealogies are not up to date) and was not published.
