Researcing an Ayrshire ancestor of my wife's, Margaret McWhirter, born 1761, I hit on this resource:-
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~mcwgen/
The alternative spellings on that homepage leapt out at me as my mother's maiden name was Mewhort.
We already knew that my mother was descended from a supporter of Prince William in the Williamite Campaign in Ireland 1688-1691, who was given land at Lurgan under the Scheme of Distribution at the end of the campaign. The family cottage which was built on this land stood there until the early 20th century. Although his many descendants spread to England, Scotland, Australia, USA and Canada, some known as Mewhort and some as Mawhirt, some branches of the family remain today in the Portadown and Lurgan areas of County Armagh.
The popular belief was that he was a Dutch or Branderburger who came to Ireland specifically to support Prince William and who then stayed behind and married an Irish girl.
BUT
I have never found any Mewhort descendents in Holland despite many enquiries.
This McWhirter site raises for me the new suggestion that the Mewhort patriarch may have been a Scot!
The site includes reference to migration from Ayrshire across the water into the north of Ireland and to the name Mewhirter being found in Ireland as early as 1646 and mentions a McWhirter supporter of Prince William who was injured in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
So both my wife and I could be descended from McWhirters of Ayrshire.
The site even shows kilts in a McWhirter tartan.
I couldn't find this one on tartan ferret. Perhaps some of our tartan experts will know of it.
Maybe an excuse to order yet another kilt!!!