Clan Mackay Sept

**ctbuchanan** · 15th June 17, 08:03 AM

That is a tough one. I do a lot of name research for our clansmen so I gave it a go.
The name Pollard appears to be almost entirely early English. One origin theory was a variation of the the medieval forename Paul (Poll) and Hard meaning brave or strong.
Here is a distribution map of the UK from the 1881 census. As you can see it is almost non existent in Scotland.

http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/Ma...y=GB&type=name

This is not to say that they weren't there at all- just very few of them.

Good luck
CTB

**LKM** · 16th June 17, 08:27 PM

Last names often have multiple origins. On a quick search it looks like Pollard is most commonly from England, then from Cornwall, and even a few from Germany. Do you have some areas that you are stuck on your family tree that some of us can look into? Sometimes more then one set of eyes looking and checking sources could be a huge help. Sometimes there are dead ends where the records were lost or simple not kept. If you can find an ancestor on https://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/pollard/help you would have a huge clue as to where the family would be from.

**Me cousin Jack** · 17th June 17, 06:59 AM

I found one interesting reference to clan MacKay amongst my clans info on Septs.

If a family moved further away and found themselves in another Clans area, they could ask for protection from that Chief. If he accepted them, they became a Sept of his Clan and they gave their loyalty to this new Chief. Clan MacBean was known as an ever war like clan. They liked to fight. At one point there was a split in the Clan over the amount of fighting and some of the Clan moved to another area and became a Sept of Clan MacKay.