Searching for Scottish Ancestors

I recently researched for an American client called McGruder and found that her ancestry threw up variations such as MacGrudder, MacGruther, MacGrouder, MacGrewer, MacGruar, and even MacGrowther. There is no right or wrong spelling. All these spellings have since become fixed surnames, but 200, 300 years ago the name (son of the brewer) was simply spelt as the registrar or census enumerator thought it was spelt. There was no holy grail of uniform spelling. 

Most people if asked whether surnames or first names had the longest historical pedigree would answer surnames, but they would be wrong.  In the early historical records of Scotland  it is single personal names we find.  For example in the charter of 1094 of King Duncan to the monastery of St Cuthbert, the monks are listed as Malcolum, Ulf, Hemming, Eadger, Aelfric and so on. In small communities there was no need for second names. In the 13^th century with an increase in population “sur”-names or additional names start to appear more often.

The first people in Scotland to acquire fixed surnames were the nobles and great landowners who called themselves after the lands they possessed.  But before everyone today with the surname Gordon, Mar, Stirling, Houston, Crawford, or Hamilton starts imagining the nobility of their ancestors, I should add that many of the tenants of the great estates later followed their landlord in using  the estate name as their second name.

One of the commonest sources of surnames is patronymic, i.e. in relation to the father. Son is added to the Christian name, like Thomson, Johnson, Dickson. Others have the same derivation but are less obvious. Dawson is an abbreviation of Davidson, while Watson was Walterson. Sometimes the “on” was dropped to create Andrews, Richards, Edwards.  

In Scandinavia patronymic name change continued for generation after generation without fixing surnames. For example my Norwegian father-in-law was baptised Martin Ellingsen, and his father Andreas Ellingsen. However his grandfather was Elling Torgersen, who was the son of Torger Ellingsen, who was the son of Elling Johnsen.  In Shetland and Orkney the influence of Norse patronymic naming is evident. One of my ancestors from Unst was born around 1780 and named Agnes Williamsdaughter.  On her death certificate in Leith in 1871 she is referred to as Agnes Smith maiden name Hughson. From this I can deduce her father’s name was William Hughson, and her grandfather’s name was Hugh  ……

In Highland Scotland, the Gaels used the prefix “mac” to denote “son of” - MacDonald, son of Donald; MacPhail son of Paul; Macgowan, son of the smith; Macintosh, son of the leader.  As these surnames stabilised they were taken up by the ordinary clansmen of the area, just as in the lowland areas many tenants took up their landlord’s surname.  In Ireland “mac” was one of two ways of denoting “son of”, the other prefix being “ua” or “o”, hence O’Neill, O’Leary.

Another major source of surnames were descriptions of a trade or occupation.

The Ragman Roll of 1296 includes these names:

Then of course there are names based on a description of physical peculiarities such as Longman, Broadhead, Cudlipp, Crookshank, Hawkey(e). A characteristic Orkney name is Scollay, which in Old Norse means “skalli” or bald.

Finally while England is responsible for Ramsbottom, Scotland can lay claim to Sowlug, Aydrunken, Unkutheman, and Hangpudying.  No, better not ask!