District Family Surnames of Scotland

The use of the term “District” in the title, and throughout this book, is used loosely to identify the locations where records of the names included were recorded.   The term is used loosely because the governing administrative areas identified as “District” and “Region” were done away with in Scotland around 1997.   At that time these areas were redesignated as Councils, of which there are now 32. We in the Scottish-American community have yet to make that distinction.   Over the past 25 years that I have been associated with Scottish heritage events I’ve witnessed a great deal of effort being expended on refining and defining everything associated with Scottish Clans.  However, with a couple of exceptions, little effort seems to have gone into giving the same amount of focus to the identification of surnames associated with Scotland who are not linked to a clan.  This has been a problem for those of us who are attempting to help every visitor attending these events find their Scottish connection. Until now there has been little detailed, quality reference materials to adequately help us.   A necessary distinction to remember and share is the fact that there is a misperception that Scotland’s people are centered strictly around the clan structure.  Clans represent less than one third of all the people of Scotland.  The non-clan families are city dwellers. They’ve not declared fealty to a clan chief, but provide goods, services, and labor in the regions in which they reside.   The information collected on this portion of Scotland’s people comes from various publicly available sources such as Scottish government, regional administration, church (birth, marriage, death), and transportation (deportation) records.  Regarding the latter source, there were no restrictions on the transportation of the subjects of England (English, Irish, Scots, Welsh) to the Americas, Caribbean, and Australia. Information extracted from these transportation records focused only on those transported prisoners specifically identified as Scottish.  Prisoner transportation records to the Americas spanned the period 1600-1776 while those sent to Australia spanned the period 1776-1830.   As would be expected, the ravages of time has taken its toll on the availability of records prior to the middle 1700’s. Census records available for review covered a limited period (1800-1921), and most church and parish records are not yet available on-line.  Combine these issues with an apparent lack of interest in thoroughly documenting details about each prisoner transported prior to 1770 with information where they were born or lived at the time.  After 1770 there appears to be a noticeable effort to provide greater detail on each person transported.     For prisoners transported to Australia, the gaps in information are more significant. The documents available provided a few additional names but, for the most part, copies of the microfiche records weren’t legible enough to decipher information such as the country of the prisoner’s origin making it difficult in determining if the names should be included here.   During my research there also appeared to be a strong indication that some Scottish family lines may have died out in Scotland as a direct result of transportation.  A suspicion I believe is confirmed by the existence of the Family Tree Y-DNA Project whose aim is to identify descendants of the Scots captured in the battles of Dunbar and Worcester (1650-1651) and transported to the Americas Plantations.   Although political and religious reasons were grounds for transportation, for the most part transportation to the Americas and Australia took place to reduce overcrowding in prisons and on prison hulks.  Crimes for those being transported ranged from assault, battery, sex crimes, adultery, bigotry, libel, rioting, threatening behavior, vagabonding, arson, deception (bankruptcy, forgery, fraud, perjury), and sundry crimes we would consider petty by today’s standards.  The periods of conflict with the English Crown attributed significantly to the numbers of those being transported.  Conflicts such as the wars of the Three Kingdoms (1638-1651), the Covenanter Risings (1660-1680), Argyll’s Rebellion (1685), and the Jacobite Rebellions (1715, 1719, and 1745) are periods in time bearing witness to greater numbers of prisoners being transported.    It is important to keep in mind that Scottish surnames were influenced by resident Picts, Norman invasion, Irish emigration in the 5th century, and Anglian immigrants along the borders. There were also raids and colonization of the Scottish Isles by the Norsemen some of which contributed to the surnames we see today. Generally, family lists ignored spelling variations which were a direct result of these migrations and subsequent urbanization occurring at a time when most of the people were illiterate.   Regarding spelling variations, one should not be inflexible over on the exact spelling of a family name when researching.    While this book lists nearly 10,000 names, it should not be considered a comprehensive reference document due to those gaps in information cited. However, as it stands now, this is the most comprehensive single source document we have today for those interested in assisting visitors to the Scottish heritage events who are interested in finding a surname connection to Scotland.