More on Septs

[xman]

This whole discussion is just making me think that the most bulletproof clan/sept affiliation is still an active one, rather than a passive one based on their ancestors; officially joining the clan and/or their association/society.

Y'know Colin I would agree with you except the more I read this conversation the more I see the whole clan thing as completely irrelevant outside the historical context. i know that's wrong too and that for some the clan associations can be living things, but I haven't seen it. Clan Donald is perhaps the largest clan of all and no less so here in Canada, but can I get the time of day from them? Pah! Ideally it should be active in all respects as you suggest. I'm just not feeling the love.

[hkjrb623]

I actually got a very quick response from them here in the US. Unfortunately it came just after I found out that the side of the family with that clan sept came from Leitrim before moving to Scotland. My mother's side of the family is not a sept, and my family has kept documentation. The sept situation can be misleading in many ways, so definitely do your research.

[CMcG]

Y'know Colin I would agree with you except the more I read this conversation the more I see the whole clan thing as completely irrelevant outside the historical context. i know that's wrong too and that for some the clan associations can be living things, but I haven't seen it. Clan Donald is perhaps the largest clan of all and no less so here in Canada, but can I get the time of day from them? Pah! Ideally it should be active in all respects as you suggest. I'm just not feeling the love.

My suggestion to join the clan in a more official capacity is really just a way of cutting through all the genealogical murk, including this whole business of septs: regardless of what happened in one's family tree, one would then know without a doubt which clan they are part of. As you say though, the whole system in the modern era means rather different things than it did in the past...

One could also just go ahead, wear the tartan of the clan or sept most generally associated with their surname, and not worry about it. Or even forget about clans/septs entirely and wear a district, personal, or fashion tartan.

[MacSpadger]

How do you suppose people are being taken advantage of?

I can't really speak for the "tartan tat" shops of Edinburgh, as that is the Deep South to me and I have never actually visited them, but in shops in Inverness and Aberdeen and even more so at market stalls in places like Ballater and Braemar, I have seen and heard American and Canadian tourists approach vendors and say, "I'd love to buy a kilt, but I don't have any Scottish connections, my name is -----------------------". I have then heard names given that have been Germanic and even Jewish, but the vendor has used his or her "knowledge" of septs to convince then that they must have some Scottish blood, eg, the name Jung being given and the family being told that it's a version of Young, which is a Scottish name, so they are entitled to wear the Young tartan. I have seen an entire family spend more on tartan in 5 minutes than the average Scot earns in 6 months on hearing this kind of guff. I have seen a Jewish fellah quite delighted on hearing that his clan tartan was Royal Stewart, (funny, that seems to be a favourite). A lot of these tartan vendors are not "canny Scots making a living in a harsh environment" either, round Ballater they are quite likely to be English or Polish so no stereotyping here. If that's not people being taken advantage of, Ah dinnae' ken fit' wid' be, so to speak.

Have you come to a conclusion about what your main clan or sept really is?

If anything I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter.

Actual "Clan" names with associated tartans that I have direct lineage from include Barclay, Baxter, Bisset, Blair, Fraser, Henderson, MacCauley, M’Grigor (MacGregor), MacMillan, Morrison, Robertson and Scott. I have been exact in all these, no approximations. Which to choose, if any?

If I was to look at the kind of list found online or in Scottish gift shops, otherwise known as Tourist Traps, "Sept" names include Angus, sept of the Clan MacInnes, Allen, sept of the Clan MacFarlane, (how? ), Bain, sept of the Clan MacKay, Cheyne, sept of the Clan Cumming, Fenton, sept of the Clan Chisholm, Fowlie, possibly a sept of Clan Munro, Gill, sept of the Clan MacDonald, (Whuzat???), Laing, Sept of Clan Gordon or MacDonald MacCaig, sept of Clan MacLeod, Paul, (Surname of G-G-G-G Grandmother from Isle of Mull) given variously as septs of Cameron, MacIntosh, MacKay, and another Mull name, Philip, given as a sept of MacDonnell of Keppoch.

Out of all these, I think Philip as a sept of MacDonnell of Keppoch is pushing it the most, unless Philip of Macedonia really was a Mull man.

20th century tradition seems to dictate that any clan inheritance is passed through the male line. Again, looking at history, that's not the way the actual Gaels handled it. Surnames changed on a generational basis, people became part of clan systems but kept their own surnames, others changed their surnames. Even the famous/infamous Raibeart Ruadh/Rob Roy MacGregor changed his surname to that of his mother, Margaret Campbell. Nothing is written in stone, but some seem to live in hope that it is, if it means a sense of belonging. Unfortunately it can be only too easy to make money from the hopes of other's.

That's where it differentiates from harmless fun, some will be willing to believe anything if it fits in with how they perceive themselves. I'll leave this topic now with a link to a videoclip from an old TV prog I used to watch that puts the point across. It's uncomfortably close to what it was like growing up living with my Dad, but still pertinent to this thread.

[creagdhubh]

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!! I love it!!!

Cheers!

[Nick the DSM]

But to add to the confusion the Morrison's of Perthshire are specifically mentioned as a sept of the Clan Buchanan. But how a Morrison family living here in the USA for, say, 200 years is supposed to know his family came from Perthshire I'll never know. So I just send all the Morrisons over to the Clan Morrison tent.

See, this is how septs confuse people!

This is exactly the kind of thing that got me pondering. I have 5 separate direct ancestors (so far!), that have either Morrison or Morison spellings. They were living in Buchan and Banff in the 1700s and 1800's, not Perthshire ot the Western isles. But there again, Morrison is a very common name, simply meaning "son of Maurice", there are many English families with the surname Morrison who have no Scottish connections at all, in fact under the old spelling Moryson it is a very old English name that arrived with William the Conqueror. It's been pointed out that there were Morysons in Ireland, as Sir Richard Moryson was the Vice-President of Munster, but Moryson was born in England to an old English family, and he returned to England to live out his retirement and die. His son Francis emigrated from England in the 1600's and became Governor of Virginia. Two of his sons, Richard and Robert, emigrated to Virginia too.

So, hypothetically, some Virginian Morrisons could go to a USA highland games and see information that might make them think they were of Gaelic Highland extract, and buy some kilts, etc, while in fact it is the blood of Normans, Vikings, Angles and Saxons that courses through their veins.

I do see this kind of thing happening a lot. Even at piping competitions that I help run, we get American tourists come in on a fairly regular basis, (and by that I mean maybe 2 to 4 a day), saying "my surname is XXXXXXXXXXXXX, what tartan am I entitled to wear". If that question gets asked at a piping competition, I can only imagine that it gets asked far more frequently at a tartan shop.


Ultimately I think the whole "sept" business could be a bit of harmless fun, (as many in Scotland view the whole business of kilt wearing/Clan membership, to be honest), but I meet many who take the whole thing as if it is gospel truth and it does kind of sadden me on two levels:
1. People are being taken advantage of.
2. People are happy to be taken advantage of just so long as it gives them a sense of belonging to something that they want to be part of, for whatever personal reasons they may have.

But that's just human nature, I guess. We are all still tribal somewhere deep within ourselves. We demonstrate this in many different ways, including joining forums like this where the thing that unites is is a bittie of coloured cloth we buckle round our waists.

Cheers to you all.

That's where it gets messy. Names are all over the place in Britain and Ireland even Gilmore is found in Ireland as an Irish name. Only reason I know that I'm Scottish when my family came from Ireland was that they were sons of Scottish settlers. It almost seems like hit and miss sometimes with other ethnics taking the names, even English or Welsh may have a certain surname that is usually Scottish.

[Johnny Selkie]

Just a quick question regarding septs, one of my ancestors were a subject of a noble familly with ties to clan Sinclair (used the engrailed cross of the Sinclairs in his familly coat of arms) http://www.stclairresearch.com/conte...riesNorse.html . Did this make him a sept of the Sinclairs?

[gilmore]

It all belongs to the same clan anyways, right? Well, I won't say for every clan or sept, but speaking for my own experience my family is a Gillmore, which is a "sept" of Morrison. I'll happily wear Morrison tartans and not be bothered with it. Don't need to invent a Gilmore tartan....

The Gilmores are not a sept of the Morrison clan, they ARE the Morrison clan. Gilmore is the original Gaelic. It was later anglicized to Morrison.

[gilmore]

...I have then heard names given that have been Germanic and even Jewish, but the vendor has used his or her "knowledge" of septs to convince then that they must have some Scottish blood, .... I have seen a Jewish fellah quite delighted on hearing that his clan tartan was Royal Stewart, (funny, that seems to be a favourite)...

Jewish Scots, especially in the Glasgow area, have been wearing Gordon tartan kilts for around one hundred years. If you are interested, there are several threads on it here on X Marks, with photos.

[MacSpadger]

Hmm, I think that the story of Clan Morrision comes from at least 3 different strands. First of all there are what is probably the most common branch, those who are descendents of a man or men whose name was Maurice, which was hugely popular in Medieval times. This branch is based in Aberdeenshire, (I am from there and have several Morison ancestors. The name was written with one R until very recent times, although some still use it that way).

The West Coast/Hebridean branch settled in Skye and Mull as bards under the patronage of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod (around 1600)and MacLean of Duart (around 1612) respectively. The original Gaelic spelling for this family was Ó Muirgheasáin, as they were from the North of Ireland where they had previously held bardic positions for the O'Neills.

The Isle of Lewis branch claimed descent from the King of Norway, and in Scottish Gaelic the spelling was Mac Gille Mhoire, which is probably closer to what you refer to. This clan seemed to disperse after 1613, following a huge defeat by Clan MacAuley after years of inter clan warfare, and it was declared in the 19th century that it was impossible to trace their descendants.

Although apparently not related, these 3 families were declared a united clan under one chief by the Lord Lyon in 1965. So,
Mac Gille Mhoire was the original Gaelic name of one branch only of the Morrisons, the branch where, so far, no descendants have been traced.