More on Septs

[McElmurry]

From Surnames of Ireland by MacLysaght

Gilbert-This name has long been prominent in Leinster, Gilbertstown is now found as a place-name in five counties--two (Louth and Westmeath) in the sixteenth century.

MacLysaght usually says if a name is Scottish, English, or Norman if he knows. In this case he does not render an opinion. I think we can safely say not Gaelic but perhaps in time more Irish than the Irish. Certainly prominent or at least prolific to have five towns of the name.

[MacSpadger]

From Surnames of Ireland by MacLysaght

Gilbert-This name has long been prominent in Leinster, Gilbertstown is now found as a place-name in five counties--two (Louth and Westmeath) in the sixteenth century.

MacLysaght usually says if a name is Scottish, English, or Norman if he knows. In this case he does not render an opinion. I think we can safely say not Gaelic but perhaps in time more Irish than the Irish. Certainly prominent or at least prolific to have five towns of the name.

The amount of placenames may be due to the rather heavyhanded influence of the Englishman Humphrey Gilbert, who was an early "pioneer" of colonisation in Ireland, later known as The Plantations. He confiscated lands occupied by both Gaelic speakers and Hiberno-Norman dynasties in the 16th century, and gave control to settlers from England & Wales. He was made governor of Ulster and served as a member of the Irish parliament. He built many settlements in Ireland. He invaded Leinster in 1569 and captured 30-40 castles in this time. Many Irish were killed in this campaign, including women and children, and it was reported that he was made a knight amidst piles of dead Irish bodies. It's generally believed that the 16th century Irish placenames containing "Gilbert" stem from this rather brutish Devonshire man.

[McElmurry]

The amount of placenames may be due to the rather heavyhanded influence of the Englishman Humphrey Gilbert, who was an early "pioneer" of colonisation in Ireland, later known as The Plantations. He confiscated lands occupied by both Gaelic speakers and Hiberno-Norman dynasties in the 16th century, and gave control to settlers from England & Wales. He was made governor of Ulster and served as a member of the Irish parliament. He built many settlements in Ireland. He invaded Leinster in 1569 and captured 30-40 castles in this time. Many Irish were killed in this campaign, including women and children, and it was reported that he was made a knight amidst piles of dead Irish bodies. It's generally believed that the 16th century Irish placenames containing "Gilbert" stem from this rather brutish Devonshire man.

I thought it might be something like that but I did not know the time period. Just another example of why it is difficult and many times impossible for those of us spread across the globe to go directly from a surname to a clan affiliation with much certainty.

[McElmurry]

Just so James the Gilbert doesn't get the idea I am picking on his name here is a brutish excerpt from a story involving a name very similar to mine.

However, Marlborough also informs us that one Hugh Mac Giolla Mhuire, an Irishman, destroyed the Franciscan church in Carrickfergus prior to 1408, the year in which he was trapped and killed in the very same building by members of the Savage family. The latter were seeking revenge for deaths of their kinsmen, Patrick and his brother Richard, who were murdered in 1404 by one Adam Mac Giolla Mhuire after a ransom of two thousand marks had been paid. Patrick Savage, who previously served as seneschal of Ulster, may well have fallen into the Mac Giolla Mhuires' hands as a result of Sir Walter's defeat and death in the previous year. Richard was apparently acting as a pledge for his brother's ransom. [30]

And the link to the full story,

http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/.../April2008.php

[MacSpadger]

Just so James the Gilbert doesn't get the idea I am picking on his name here is a brutish excerpt from a story involving a name very similar to mine.

McElmurry, I think that any of us who look deeply into our family history long enough will find at least one brutish episode. Times were harder then.

[flairball]

I've nothing to add to this discussion, but want to say thank you to all who have clearly worked so hard to educate so many of us. I often wish I could sit still long enough to read, and research history, but I'm not the academic type. I'd much rather be training dogs, following other physical pursuits.

I came to xmarks some time ago out of a pure admiration of the kilt. I find it a fantastic garment. My family has scattered across this country, and is quite broken. Family lore has it that our surname, and our ancestors who brought it here came from Scotland. I am working on tracing the family tree back as far as I can, but have hung up terribly before finding the link across the ocean. I haven't given up, and have reached out to a gentleman in Scotland who may be of some help, and submitted a DNA test in the hopes of finding more clues over time. But that's for a different thread.

In regards to sept/clan affiliation, when it was time to spend money on a kilt of some significance I used the current list of sept names. Without any evidence that my family was in any way associated I purchased a kilt. While I have no hard evidence of a connection, and imam a believer that one should wear any tartan they chose, the kilt I bought has become the kilt I wear for any event, or activity which I feel is important and requires more than an off the peg kilt. Again, while I have no evidence of actual Scottish heritage, and have been brought up without any Scottish tradition in my family, it still holds meaning for me. I hope that anyone who's lineage may now be in question can find significance in their tartan, whether a clan affiliation is found or not. There will be people who find a link to Scotland, but never to a clan. I believe the former is more important than the latter.

Time for a dram.

[Tam Piperson]

It's been a couple of months since the last post was made to this thread, but I had been reading through it and noticed a number of things that caught my attention, so I hope no one minds me ressurrecting the thread as it were.

Since the thread deals specifically with the question of the concept of "septs" a term that was alien to the Scottish clans up until the later part of the Victorian era, as has been pointed out, it should be taken into consideration that many so-called "septs" of clans are based on very tenuous connections (or assumptions) that were made by people putting together books showing the wide array of named tartan patterns, which were usually accompanied with brief histories of the clans that use them for purposes of identification.

Many of these tartan books were first published back in the 1800's by tartan and Highlandwear merchants who made their living selling tartan kilts, plaids, and other items to customers. The wearing of Highland attire for special occassions by some, and as everyday dress by others, was very much in vogue among those with ancestral connections to Scotland during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, just as it is today; and of course people back then, just as now, wanted to wear a tartan that had some special connection to their family if possible. In that earlier era there were already in existence dozens of various tartan designs, but not nearly so many as the thousands that there are today. The actual number of named tartans associated with Scottish clans in the 1800's was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 100. Of course there were many more different family names than there were tartans, and so if a Mr. Simpson wandered into a shop specializing in Highland dress looking to be fitted out in a kilt, he might be disappointed to lean that there was no tartan that bore the Simpson name.

Rather than lose a potential customer however, the canny merchant might endeavor to accomidate Mr. Simpson, and if he knew a bit about the name and the history of the clans, he might tell Mr. Simpson something along the lines of: "Och, aye, Mr. Simpson, there isnae a Simpson tartan, but the name Simpson means 'son of Simon' and Simon was the name of the founder of the Fraser clan, you see; so that means the Simpsons are what you might call a sept of the Clan Fraser." And so, before Mr. Simpson could turn and walk out the door, he was being measured up for a kilt in the Fraser tartan.

This technique of providing customers with a justification for wearing a tartan that was associated with some name to which their own surname could somehow be tenuously connected proved to be a great boon to the High Street merchants, and soon Mr. Adkins of Brighton was being measured up for a kilt in the Gordon tartan, because Adkins was a dimunitive form of Adam's son, and the Gordon clan was founded by Adam de Gordon, and so on and so forth, until great lists of "septs" came to be published as an appendex to the tartan guide books printed and sold by canny Scots merchants, eager to expand their sales base and unload their wares onto sentimental and satisfied customers to the point where within a few decades the whole idea of septs became irreproachable and any suspicions of dubious authenticity would launch its defenders into fits of almost religious zeal, so firm was their conviction of their alleged clan connections being beyond dispute.

Which all begs the question, what exactly is a clan?

Well, back in the earlier decades of the 20th century when all this romantic tartan trumpery was in full swing and fraternal organizations like the Benevolent Order of Scottish Clans were an active concern, the then Lord Lyon King of Arms of Scotland, Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, was doing his part to build up the position of his office and attempting to expand his influence beyond his legally defined "jurisdiction, subject to appeal to the Court of Session and the House of Lords, in questions of heraldry, and the right to bear arms." to include passing judgement on other issues in defiance of Scottish Law which found that "He has no jurisdiction to determine rights of precedence, nor to decide a disputed question of chiefship or chieftainship." Not to be daunted, Sir Thomas Innes of Learney went on to author numerous books in an effort to lend credence to his belief that the office of Lord Lyon held tremendous judicial power as the supreme officer of arms of the Crown in Scotland, and that Scottish clans existed as corporations noble in the noblesse of Scotland, in so much as their chiefs residing in Scotland were required by the Act of 1672 to have their ancestral coats of arms recorded in Lyon Register and thus recognized by the crown.

Despite Sir Thomas Innes' somewhat singular and unprecedented beliefs in the jurisdiction of his office, the actual legal references to what the Crown acknowledged as Clans such as the 1587 Act "for the quieting and keeping in obvedience of the disordered subjects, inhabitants of the borders, highlands and isles" was somewhat less specific and pertained to "the captains, chiefs and chieftains of all clans, as well on the highlands as on the borders, and the principals of the branches of the said clans....which clans dwell upon the lands of diverse landlords and depend upon the directions of the said captains, chiefs and chieftains (by pretence of blood or place of their dwelling),” made no mention of heraldry or having it recorded in Lyon Register and thereby recognized by the Crown as any sort of incorporation noble in the nobelesse of Scotland, as Sir Thomas Innes would have had it. What it did record was a rather long list of Scottish clans named as such and found not only in the Highlands, but also in the Lowlands of Scotland, several of which bore names like Nixon, Crosier, Bateson, Little, Carruthers, Latimer, etc. which have largely been ignored by the writers of Scottish clan histories and compilers of tartan clan lists, even though they are clearly considered to be Scottish clans by Act of Parliament.

This particular Act was even referenced in a Scottish Court of Law where it was determined in the case of MacLean of Ardgour vs. MacLean, which Sir Thomas Innes even cites himself, that "Clan and Family mean exactly the same thing.":

Evidence in the case of MacLean of Ardgour vs. MacLean:

P.220) (Q.) "In your view, what does the word "clan" mean? (A.) It has a general meaning of family, ordinary meaning of family, but there is a peculiar sense in which it is used for this quasi-feudal organisation in the Highlands, or you might say feudal organisation. (Q.) But its primary meaning, I think, is family? (A.) Yes. (Q.)In your view, did the clans in fact consist either of persons linked by blood or persons linked by reason of place of dwelling in a territory? (A.) That is the defination of the Act of Parliament. (Reference Acts 1587 & Act of 11 Sept, 1593 A.P.S., IV, p. 40) (Q.) Do you see a reference there to the pretence of blood or place of dwelling? (A.)Yes. (Q.)Are those familiar terms? (A.) Quite familiar. Pretence means claim....(Q.) So that in your view do you get this dual element entering into the composition of the clan, blood-relation and place of dwelling? (A.) Oh, yes, you have both.

Evidence of the Very Rev. Lachlan Maclean Watt, LL.D., Bard of the Clan MacLean Association:

(P. 517) (Q.) (Referred to Mackenzie's "Works," II, 574, 618: (Q.)Do you deduce that Sir G. Mackenzie considered that from a heraldic point of view the "head of the clan" the "chief of the clan" or the "representer of the family" all meant the same thing? (A.) I respectfully suggest that it is a matter of "Head of a Family" and "Head of a Clan." He was a Highlander and he knew that clan means a family. Clan and family mean exactly the same thing."

Maclean of Ardgour v. Maclean 1941 S.C. 613:

"From an allowance of proof the Court excluded all questions relating to the chieftainship and the relative positions of the parties within the clan, holding that neither chiefship of a whole clan nor chieftainship of a branch of a clan was a legal status justiciable in a court of law, but had the character of a social dignity only, and, accordingly, that the Lord Lyon had no jurisdiction to decide the disputed question of who had right to the chieftainship either directly or incidentally when disposing of the claims for supporters and for a birthbrief. [..] Observations: [...] on the meaning of "chief" and "chieftain" in the law and practice of arms, with opinion by the Lord Justice-Clerk that in the recorded cases in which a Lord Lyon had made a declaration of chiefship the declaration had been merely a ministerial act and not a finding in his judicial capacity upon a disputed question."

Lord Justice-Clerk, in Maclean of Ardgour v. Maclean 1941 S.C. at p. 636:

"There is no instance in the registers of any judicial decision by Lyon in a disputed question of chiefship or chieftainship. The only instance founded on by the petitioner was the finding by Lyon regarding the chiefship of Clan Chattan on 10th September 1672 [...] It will be noticed that this declaration proceeded simply upon a perusal by Lyon of evidents and testimonies from "our histories, my own Registers, and bands of Manrent" and that it was in no sense a finding pronounced in a lis or contested process. It vouches nothing beyond that in this particular case Lyon made a declaration of chiefship. Similarly, the matriculation of the arms of the chief of the M'Naghtons proves nothing [...] This is not a decision in a lis: again it is simply a recording of the dignity of a chiefship acknowledged by attestation. The only other case to which reference need be made is the case of Drummond of Concraig [...] This is the only instance to which we were referred of a chief of a branch being mentioned, and it is only designation. It is not a declarator or a declaratory finding of chieftaincy. In none of the writs which were before us can I find any support for a conclusion that Lyon at any time either claimed, or exercised, a jurisdiction to determine disputes as to which of competing claimants to chiefship or chieftainship was to be preferred."

Lord Wark, in Maclean of Ardgour v. Maclean 1941 S.C. at p. 657:

"I agree with your Lordships that Lyon has no jurisdiction to entertain a substantive declarator of chiefship of a Highland clan, or of chieftainship of a branch of a clan. [...] The question of chiefship of a Highland clan, or chieftainship of a branch of a clan, is not in itself, in my opinion, a matter which involves any interest which the law can recognise. At most, it is a question of social dignity or precedence. In so far as it involves social dignity it is a dignity which, in my opinion, is unknown to the law. It was decided in the case College of Surgeons of Edinburgh v. College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1911 S.C. 1054), that Lyon has no jurisdiction except as is conferred by statute, or is vouched by the authority of an Institutional writer, or by continuous and accepted practice of the Lyon Court. [...] in my opinion, there is no practice or precedent which entitled Lyon to decide a question of disputed chiefship or chieftainship, either by itself or incidentally to a grant of arms. There is direct authority, by way of precedent, for Lyon considering an acknowledged chiefship of a clan as incidental to a grant of arms with supporters. The case of Macnaghton (13th January 1818, Lyon Register, vol. ii, p. 172) is a case of that kind. But it is a different thing altogether to say that in a case of dispute Lyon has jurisdiction to determine and declare who is chief. For that no precedent has been cited to us. In my opinion, it is outwith his jurisdiction to decide because (1) at best it is a question merely of social status or precedence; (2) this social status is not one recognised by law; and (3) and, most important of all, it depends, not upon any principle of law of succession which can be applied by a Court of Law, but upon recognition by the clan itself. Like your Lordship, I am at a loss to understand how any determination or decree of Lyon ever could impose upon a clan a head which it did not desire to acknowledge."

As Sir Crispin Agnew of Lochnaw put it, the "belief that clans are Highland and families are Lowland....is really a development of the Victorian era."

[Geoff Withnell]

For many years I didn't know of any direct Scottish connection. My family name Withnell means "willow hill" in Welsh, and I knew from family stories that the Withnells were originally Welsh, altho they lived in Leigh, Lancastershire. My father's mother was named Davis, or Davies, both spellings being in the records, sometimes on the same sheet of paper. As Davis and Davies are common Welsh names, I always assumed she was Welsh as well. A while back, talking to my Dad, he said, "Oh no, my Mom was from 'up North'. It was for some reason important to her to make clear that she wasn't Welsh." "Up North" from Leigh could only mean Scotland, and Davis/Davies being really a variant rather than a sept of Davidson, I decided to contact Clan Davidson association, and they were more than happy to accept me. Doesn't really mean an enormous amount, given that I don't expect the Chief to be calling us to battle any time soon, but I like having a ready answer to the "What Clan?" questions, and I know which group to form up with for the Alexandria Christmas Walk.