Clan Munro

[usonian]

As I contemplate making a kilt from a family tartan (as opposed to a universal one) I decided I really should be a little more certain about my supposed affiliation with Clan MacPherson (through my great grandmother, whose name was MacLaury.) I wanted to see if I could find out where in Scotland the family came from. I'm pretty fortunate when it comes to genealogy because most of my descendants settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s; there's a lot of documentation on this side of the pond... and a great deal of genealogical research has been focused on those first ancestors in the New World, so a lot of them can be traced surprisingly far back.

I signed up for a free 14-day trial ("free" as long as you remember to cancel before they start billing you) at Ancestry.com and learned two interesting things:

The MacLaurys in my line are actually descended from one Thomas J. McClaughry, born in the Barony of Longford in Ireland. There was a 1913 genealogy of the McClaughrys that posits the name comes from the Gaelic "Mac Chlach righ" which translates to "Son of the King of the Stone" and further suggests that this may imply that the McClaughrys were fugitive MacGregors from Scotland, living under an assumed surname (http://cp1237.com/mcclgen/mccbio1.htm). I'll have to track down a copy of the book some time and see if the author backs that up with anything more substantial; it's romantic, but seems a bit tenuous.

Then I discovered through another line that my 16th great grandfather was Sir Robert de Munro, 8th Baron of Foulis... according to Wikipedia, Robert is the first Clan Chief who can be documented with contemporary evidence. So, it appears I'm descended from at least 9 generations of Munros, and probably more than that. Granted, the last Munro in my tree is a number of generations back but it's an unambiguous and fairly auspicious connection.

[Border Chief]

There is probably no etymological connection between MacLaury and MacLaren; but the Clan MacLaren Society does list MacLaurie, McLaurie, etc. as "septs" (alternate spelling variations) of their clan name. The MacLauren tartan is an attractive one.

modern MacLauren:


ancient MacLauren:


weathered MacLauren:

[figheadair]

So far as tartans are concerned both the MacLaren and Munro tartans were designs by Wilsons of Bannockburn c.1800 albeit not under those names until around 1830.

I'd say that your Munro connection is stronger and recommend that as your first choice.

[usonian]

When I was first researching the 'MacLaury' name I did notice the similarity of some of the MacLaren septs, and I went so far as to post on either a Scottish or Gaelic usenet group (or was it perhaps a listserv? This was in the early 90's and my memory is hazy) and someone was kind enough to explain in some detail how the 'Y' ending was more likely to have evolved phonetically from 'MacLerie' (sept of MacPherson) than 'MacLaurie' (sept of MacLaren)

It wasn't until more recently that I managed to find 'MacLaury' verbatim in two different MacPherson sept lists... but at this point it's moot because it's an Irish name to begin with. The Munro connection is in the long ago, but generations deep, and I've already got some swatches on the way.

On the Irish McClaughry side, the County Longford tartan is an interesting one: