Arborealis

[ arbor : tree ] + [ borealis : northern ]

Scottish family history research interests

Introduction :

To date, the results of research into our Scottish origins has been limited by the availability of 17th & early 18th century records. In the case of our Scottish ancestors who emigrated to Ireland during that period, we need a link between that part of Scotland where people lived and those places in Ireland where they resettled.

For example, the earliest record found for our Kilpatrick / Kirkpatrick ancestors in county Derry was the 1740 Protestant Householders list,¹ naming Will Kilpatrick in the parish of Kilrea and James Killpatrick in the parish of Tamlaght O’Crilly, both in the county of Derry. Names for Kilpatrick –alias Gilpatrick, Kirkpatrick, and possibly McIlfatrick– were not found in these parishes in the 1660s hearth money rolls. In 1669, seven Kilpatrick households were named on the county Antrim side of the river Bann, in the parish of Finvoy, about five miles distant from the town of Kilrea.² Thus, there is a seventy-one year gap between the 1669 hearth money roll and the 1740 Protestant householders list. Indeed, we cannot trace our Kilpatrick / Kirkpatrick ancestors in Ireland before 1740, let alone identify their county and parish of origin in Scotland.

Tracing people from Scotland to Ireland during the 17th and early 18th centuries is equally confounding. In the 19th century, this purpose was often served by passenger lists, which do not survive for the 17th & early 18th century (if they were ever kept!), or by comparing details in vital records in the new home country to similar records in the old country. Such records of births or baptisms, marriages, and deaths or burials were either not kept from these early dates, or did not survive to the present day. Sadly, this illustrates the difficulty in tracing back to Scotland.

Baxter, Walter. *The ruined cottage at Ladhopemoor*. A winter view of the remains of a shepherd’s cottage in hill farming countryside southwest of Langshaw, in Roxburghshire. Dated 25th Dec. 2009. Online at Wikimedia Commons (accessed 2023-10-01). Image licensed under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 2.0. Readers are encouraged to visit the latter link, to learn the rights and restrictions attached to this image.

Early migrants from Scotland :

The following list summarizes our Scottish family history research interests by the surnames of our early ancestors in Scotland, and of several collateral branches. Their places of origin in Scotland are not known, and their recorded history in Ireland dates primarily from the early 1700s, with a few surnames appearing on 1660s hearth money rolls. All of these surnames have been included on the Irish family history research interests page for reference to further information. This list will serve as an index for the home page for each surname. (links pending)

Allett, also Ellet or Elliott, of the parish of Donaghenry, county Tyrone; possibly from Reiver country on the borders
Campbell of Lislea townland in the parish of Kilrea, county Derry
Gordon of Lislea
Huggins of Glenarb in the parish of Aghaloo, county Tyrone. This surname, while not numerous, was extant in Scotland.
Kilpatrick or Kirkpatrick of the parishes of Kilrea and Tamlaght O’Crilly
M’Cay, McCay, M’Kay, or McKay of Lislea
Sharp or Sharpe of Coagh, county Tyrone
Stevenson of Stewartstown, county Tyrone
Stephenson of Killyfaddy in the parish of Armagh (later Lisnadill)
Thompson of Creevelough, parish of Aghaloo

Later residents in Scotland :

This list consists of several families, dating to the early 1700s, into which line an Irish ancestor intermarried. Also included are several of our Scots Irish ancestors who returned to Scotland, taking up residence during the 19th century. The surnames in this group include:

Allan of Alloa, Clackmannanshire (related surname)
Colvin of Denovan in Stirlingshire from the early 1700s, and of Calcutta in West Bengal by the late 1770s (related surname)
Dewar of Glasgow (related surname)
Henderson of Thurso, Caithness (related surname)
Jackson of the Hon. East India Company (related surname)
Kennedy of Benburb in the county of Tyrone. Claims to descent from the earl of Cassillis persist, with branches in Ardmillan, Ayrshire and Castle Kennedy in Dumfries & Galloway. — Please note that the claim to the Cassillis line remains unproven.
Kirkpatrick of Glasgow
McGowan of Dumfries (related surname)
Marshall of Dumfries (related surname)
Pattison of Edinburgh (related surname)
Ralston of Glasgow (related surname)
Renny and Glasgow of Falkirk (related surnames)
Steele of Greenock, Renfrewshire (related surname)
Stevenson of Beith, Ayrshire (related surname)

Notes :

Please note that many more surnames occur in our lateral lines, i.e., as second, third, etc. cousins, removed once, twice, or even several times.

If you have a family history connection to one of the family lines listed above, please consider getting in touch via the contact page.

Updated 1st Oct. 2023.

Source citation for this page: — Kilpatrick, Alison. “Family history: Index of surnames out of Scotland.” Published to Arborealis, online at arborealis.ca/family-history/scottish/, accessed [insert date of access].

Footnotes :

Protestant Householders Returns, County Londonderry, 1740. Records held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Belfast. Archival ref. T808/152258. Summary with annotations by William Macafee; hosted online at Bill Macafee’s Family & Local History Website (accessed 2011-05-08). ↩︎
Hearth Money Rolls for County Antrim, 1669. Records held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Belfast. Archival ref. [unstated]. Summary with annotations by William Macafee; hosted online at Bill Macafee’s Family & Local HIstory Website (accessed 2011-05-08). ↩︎

Location map of Scotland. Derivative work by Eric Gaba, NordNordWest. Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. Online at Wikimedia Commons (accessed 1st Oct. 2023). Adapted by Alison Kilpatrick, 2023. Readers are encouraged to visit both links to learn the rights and responsibilities attached to this image.

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helpful links

National Records of Scotland

Old Scottish Genealogy & Family History

Scotland GENUKI

Scottish Indexes

Scotland’s People

Gazetteer of Scotland

General Description [1803]: — Scotland, or that part of the island of Great Britain, which lies to the N. of the river Tweed, is bounded on all sides by the sea, except on the S.E., where it is joined to England. The Orkney and Shetland Isles, and the northern coast of the mainland of Scotland, oppose themselves to the waves of the great North Sea; the eastern shores are bounded by the German ocean; the islands and rugged cliffs, on its western coast, repel the waves of the great Atlantic Ocean; and the southern shores are washed by the waves of the Irish Sea, and the Solway Frith [sic]. Scotland extends about 280 miles in length, from the Mull of Galloway to Cape Wrath; and, at the greatest breadth, from the Point or Ru of Ardnamurchan to Buchanness, 180 miles; but the land is so indented by arms of the ssea, that the breadth is exceedingly various, and no part is distant above 40 miles from the coast. Scotland lies in 54° N. latitude; but the islands pertaining to it lie much further N.; the extreme island of Shetland being in 61° 12′ N.; nearly the same latitude as Bergen in Norway. — Source: The Gazetteer of Scotland. Dundee: printed by E. Ray, for W. Chalmers, Castle-street, 1803. Transcript by Alison Kilpatrick, 1st Oct. 2023.

The Scottish Harvest

An interesting feature of our Scottish harvest is the annual migration and return of the Highlanders, and latterly of the poor Irish, who, at this season, pour out upon the Lothians like locusts. Fewer have appeared this year than usual, from alarm of cholera.

The Highlander’s Reaper’s Song.
Such have I heard in Scottish land,
Rise from the busy harvest-band,
When falls before the mountaineer,
On Lowland plains, the ripened ear.
Now one shrill voice the notes prolong,
Now a wild chorus swells the song.
Oft have I listened and stood still,
As it came softened up the hill,
And deemed it the lament of men
Who languished for their native glen;
And thought how sad would be the sound
On Susquehana’s swampy ground,
Kentucky’s wood-encumbered brake,
On wild Ontario’s boundless lake,
When heart-sick exiles, in the strain
Recalled fair Scotland’s hills again.
… by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832)

— Source: The Schoolmaster and Edinburgh Weekly. Published at Edinburgh, 1st Sept. 1823, pg. 23. Transcript by Alison Kilpatrick, 1st Oct. 2023.

Scottish enlightenment

A short list of key figures of the Scottish enlightenment during the 18th century:

David Allan (1744–1796), painter and illustrator
John Armstrong (1709–1799), physician, poet, and satirist
John Arbuthnot (1667–1735), physician, satirist, and polymath
John Bell of Antermony (1691–1780), doctor and traveller
Thomas Blackwell (1701–1757), classical scholar and historian
John Broadwood (1732–1812), piano manufacturer
Robert Burns (1759–1796), poet
John Cleland (1709–1789), writer, author of Fanny Hill
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1653–1716), writer, patriot
James Gillray (1756–1815), caricaturist and printmaker
Francis Home (1719–1813), physician, Professor of Materia Medica at Edinburgh
Thomas Alexander Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie (1732–1781), composer and virtuoso violinist
David Mallet [Malloch] (c.1705–1765), writer
Alexander Monro I (1697–1767), physician, founder of Edinburgh Medical School
James Oswald (1710–1769), composer, cellist, and music publisher
Archibald Pitcairne (1652–1713), physician and bibliophile
John Rutherford (1695–1779), physician
Tobias Smollett (1721–1771), writer
James Tassie (1735–1799), gem engraver and modeller (painted by David Allan)
James Thomson (1700–1748), poet, author
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (1747–1813), advocate, judge, writer, and historian
John Walker (1731–1803), minister and natural historian