Skip to main content

2024 Week1: Family lore #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

As I've mentioned previously, my parents never shared family stories with me and I never asked. The only 'family lore' story I can think of was provided to me by my dad's brother, my uncle, George McAra. His bowling blazer carried the coat of arms of the MacGregor clan. He maintained that the McAras were part of this great clan and 'our' motto was "Royal is my line". He also told me our ancestors were kings in Ireland. As a teenager in the 1970s,  my mum even made me a poncho in the Macgregor tartan! (I'm relieved I don't have a photo of that!)

My dad with my Uncle George. The Macgregor crest is on the blazer pocket, though not very clear. Source: own photo

So.. is any of that true? Have I the right to claim I'm part of Clan Macgregor? And were they or their ancestors kings in Ireland?

According to internet name sources, the McAra name itself was first found in Perthshire, likely dating back to the 11th century. Since then, it has been found in a variety of different spellings, such as McArra, McCarry, McCar. I actually have six different spellings in my own McAra line, even for the same individuals on different documentation and I have come across many others.

Research has indicated that the McAras originally belonged to one of the ancient Dalriadan clans on the west coast of Scotland. Dalriada was a Gaelic Kingdom that encompassed present day north Antrim in Northern Ireland and the Inner Hebrides and Argyll in present day Scotland.

The ancient kingdom of Dalriada highlighted. Source: Wikipedia
The kingdom of Dalriada was at its height in the 6th and 7th centuries. In earlier times the Scoti from 'Ireland'  had migrated in large numbers into Argyll. Through competition with neighbouring kingdoms in mainland Britain and Ireland, the power of the Irish Dalriada gradually declined and the expansion of Scottish Dalriada was halted by the Picts. Eventually the King of Dalriada, Kenneth McAlpin, (later Kenneth I of Scotland) succeeded in uniting the Kingdom of Dalriada and the Kingdom of the Picts under the Kingdom of Alba. Soon after, the whole area became known as Scotland.

So ... I have McAra origins possibly on the west coast of Scotland, possibly descended from the Scoti, who came from the 'Irish' Dalriada. The name is first found recorded in Perthshire, but can I now link McAras to Clan Macgregor?

Clan warfare was rife in the Highlands of Scotland before 1745. It was therefore expedient to 'connect' your family to the strongest clan in your neighbourhood to gain their protection, irrespective of your family name or allegiances. Clan Gregor (Macgregor) has its seat in Perthshire. The Macgregors themselves are said to be descended from a line of ancient Celtic kings. This is alluded to in their motto 'Royal is my race'. According to Wikipedia, the original Gregor may have been the brother of Kenneth McAlpin. Although there is little evidence for this, it was supported by historian William Forbes Skene (1809-1892) in his work 'Celtic Scotland - A History of Ancient Alba'.

So there we have it - the McAras may have connected themselves to the MacGregors and thus became 'entitled' to clan membership. Gregor may indeed have been of royal blood. 

Uncle George seems to have been convinced. So maybe he was right after all!

By Celtus (Celtus @ english wikipedia) -  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4406562


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 Week 43: Lost contact #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

 When we research our ancestors and their families, it is all to easy to become a collector of names, dates and places. After all, we want to 'know' who they were and where they lived and when, in order to get a glimpse into what their life was like. We look for photographs of our most recent ancestors to see what they looked like. We trawl censuses, Poor Law Applications, Wills and Testaments to get some detail about their rank in society, their jobs, their financial circumstances. We discover their families, the children they had, the children they lost. We may read their obituaries and gravestones and scan their death certificates for cause of death. Through research, we can slowly start to build up a picture of them, a notion that we know 'who they were'. But something will usually elude us - we will never truly know their feelings/emotions, even if we know the key moments in their lives. Take my grandmother, Christina, who lost her first four children and then anot...
4 comments
Read more

2024: Week 41: Most #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

Looking at my DNA matches over various platforms and my family tree research, it is obvious to me that my paternal grandmother's line - the Walkers - are the line which have the most descendants (or at least the most descendants who have tested) and who have spread out furthest over the world. My great great grandparents James Walker (1777-1862) and Ellen Muir (1790-1866) from Linlithgow in Scotland had ten children - eight boys and two girls. Such large families were not uncommon in those times. Two of the boys never married, but between them the other eight siblings produced at least 52 grandchildren! The eldest of the siblings, George Walker was, however,  the only one of the children to ever leave Scotland and that was later in life, when he followed his son John, a miner, over to the USA. It is, however, many of the grandchildren of James and Ellen who decide to leave their homeland for the USA and for Australia. Their USA destinations included Kansas, Colorado, Ohio and Maryl...
Post a Comment
Read more

2024 Week 19: Preserve #52Ancestorsin52Weeks

 A few years ago, I came into the possession of a family bible. It was the family bible of my paternal grandparents, John McAra and Christina Walker. Until her death in 2018, the bible had been in the hands of my Aunt Inez, widow of my Uncle Will McAra. When I started enquiring as to its whereabouts, I found that it was her grandson, John, who now had it. John himself had no real interest in it at all, so he was quite happy to hand it over to me. However, it was, to say the least, in a bit of a state. The front cover was completely detached and there were many loose pages as the spine of the book was also damaged and detached. I had no choice but to take it to a book repairer in Glasgow, where it was repaired as best it could be. The bible itself had been originally published in Glasgow in the late 19th century. In Victorian times it was common for Christian families to have such a large bible in which they could record events such as births, marriages and deaths. The one I have al...
1 comment
Read more