You might notice there’s an awful lot of Macs in the country, MacDonalds, MacGregors, etc., when you first take a wander down the local high street. Most of them would appear to be random or old names, and this is true – on one level. There has been here a MacDonald Market Gardener in olden times and now a butcher, MacDonald Brothers. Once an Anderson bootmaker, now an Anderson dentist, names seem to come and go and then come back again. Nothing altogether unusual about that, but hey, now we have DNA. You can get a swab from Ancestry.com or FTDNA and find out you too are ACTUALLY related very, very distantly into this Scottish Clan thing, that this connection isn’t just the family biz in the high street or running through only certain families. YOU, too, are connected – widely all over the world into a Clan family. In Germany, Australia and NZ, Africa, Canada and America, particularly America, who are very active clan wise. BUT more importantly, rather wonderfully, you could find yourself perhaps connected to a glorious wee village, in a beautiful scenic spot, not far perhaps from the A9 going straight north from Edinburgh with some lovely tearooms with beetroot chocolate cake. You can breathe a sigh of relief, pop the flag in and set up HOME or at least set yourself up for an annual visit.
Some Clans are very active, like the MacPhersons and have an association. All of a sudden, you have COUZINSssss. You might find you’re distantly related to TRUMP (if you hail from the MacLeod’s of Lewis) or the Getty family like we do, distantly. You, too, can quietly ponder of a moment when selling the old washing machine on gumtree on the intrepid nature of their entrepreneurial spirit….
It’s a bit complicated, like all families. These cousins are not necessarily all related to each other. They may herald from different family lines. Then within this DNA stew are the various family preferences on spellings, such as McP, MacP and Macp. Others, who were adopted, taking the name for protection in times of hardship. All under the same great big Clan umbrella. With a Clan Chief, usually MALE but not always such as the MacLeods and McLarens. An egalitarian concept, the late Chief of Clan Macpherson, Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, considered himself ‘first among equals’, and his son Jamie now takes on the mantel.
And so, it continues, families gather, children have played, been adopted, and many enthusiastic adults encompassed—a few marriages in modern times just as in olden times. Me, a MacP, married to a Macp and divorced – back to MacP. A first, a divorce, I think, officially recorded anyway. All included merged together and carried on.
