Over the past 25 years that I have been associated with Scottish heritage events I’ve witnessed a great deal of effort being expended on refining and defining everything associated with Scottish Clans. However, with a couple of exceptions, little effort seems to have gone into giving the same amount of focus to the identification of surnames associated with Scotland who are not linked to a clan. This has been a problem for those of us who are attempting to help every visitor attending these events find their Scottish connection. Until now there has been little detailed, quality reference materials to adequately help us. A necessary distinction to remember and share is the fact that there is a misperception that Scotland’s people are centered strictly around the clan structure. Clans represent less than one third of all the people of Scotland. The non-clan families are city dwellers. They’ve not declared fealty to a clan chief, but provide goods, services, and labor in the regions in which they reside. The information collected on this portion of Scotland’s people comes from various publicly available sources such as Scottish government, regional administration, church (birth, marriage, death), and transportation (deportation) records. Regarding the latter source, there were no restrictions on the transportation of the subjects of England (English, Irish, Scots, Welsh) to the Americas, Caribbean, and Australia. Information extracted from these transportation records focused only on those transported prisoners specifically identified as Scottish. Prisoner transportation records to the Americas spanned the period 1600-1776 while those sent to Australia spanned the period 1776-1830.
Get accurate information about Scottish clans, family associations, and societies in this updated edition of Scottish Clans and Their Associated Families. Robert J. Heston expands on his groundbreaking work to focus on the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs’ (SCSC) list of 353 clans. In addition, the author has retained the details of thirty-three Scottish families who are active in the United States and not cited in the SCSC list. When using this book, it is important to note that most Scottish clan and family organizations have clauses in their family lists stating that “variations in spelling of these names are accepted.” Therefore, this book provides the researcher the ability to look beyond an exact spelling of a name. Other books on this subject focus on a small number of clans, ancient names, and the preferred spellings of these small number of families. Some associate an individual name to a tartan, which can be problematic. With more than 12,000 names with the sources where these names were found, this work is the best source focused on identifying family surnames associated with Scottish clans, houses, and families.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.