Septs of Clan Douglas Officially Recognized by Clan Douglas Society of North America July 2011 Harold Edington Officially Recognized Septs of Clan Douglas As listed in the CDSNA 2009 Bylaws Septs of Clan Douglas © 2011 Harold A Edington All Rights Reserved. i Septs of Clan Douglas Table of Contents CDSNA Recognized Septs of Clan Douglas * Indicates a separate clan recognized by The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs . Page Page iii Introduction 48 Glenn v Sept Criteria 49 Harkness 8 Agnew* 50 Inglis 11 Blackett 519 Kilgore 11 Blacklock 53 Kirkland 11 Blaylock 54 Kilpatrick 11 Blackstock 54 Kirkpatrick 14 Blackwood 62 Lockerby 18 Breckinridge 63 Lockery 23 Brown (Broun) * 64 MacGuffey 24 Brownlee 64 MacGuffock 27 Cavan 65 M(a)cKittrick 29 Cavers 66 Morton 34 Dickey (Dickie, Dick) 70 Sandilands* 37 Drysdale 70 Sandlin 38 Forest/Forrest 73 Soule/Soulis 38 Forrester/Forster 75 Sterrett 38 Foster 78 Symington (Simms, Syme) 41 Gilpatric 83 Troup 42 Glendenning 84 Young (Younger) Appendix: Non-Sept Affiliated Surnames These are surnames that have a strong connection to Douglas but are not (yet) considered septs of Douglas by CDSNA Begins after page 86. i Septs of Clan Douglas i Septs of Clan Douglas Introduction Whether you are an older or a newer member of Clan Douglas, you have probably done a websearch of Clan Douglas. Any such search will likely present you with a number of sites listing “recognized” or “official” septs of Clan Douglas. And if you were to compile a list of all the listed surnames claimed to be Douglas septs, in addition to the eighteen (18) or so alternative spellings of Douglas, you might have a list similar to this: Agnew Dickey Hixson MacGuffock Alexander Dickie Ingles McKillrick Bell Dickle Inglis McKittrick Blackett Drongan Kent Morton Blacklock Drysdale Kidston Norton Blackstock Forest Kilgore Sandilands Blackwood Forrester Kilpatrick Sandlin Blalock Foster Kirk Simms Breckinridge Gilpatric Kirkland Soule Brown Glendinning Kirkpatrick Sterrett Brownlee Glenn Lochrie Syme Cavers Hardy Lockerby Symington Cavin Harkness Lockery Troup Dick Henry MacGuffey Young In fact, when considering spelling variations of many of these surnames -- Blalock, Blaylock, or Blaloch, for example -- the list might be even longer. While many of these sept names are recognized by CDSNA, all are not. And to make things more confusing, some of the names -- Bell, Simms, and Syme, for example -- are recognized by Clan Douglas Association of Australia (CDAA) as septs of Clan Douglas but not by Clan Douglas Society of North America (CDSNA). Clan Douglas Society of North America (CDSNA) lists the following surnames as septs of Douglas. According to CDSNA Bylaw ARTICLE III: MEMBERSHIP; SECTION 6: Sept Members - Family names (varied spellings) recognized as Septs of Clan Douglas. Agnew Brownlee Gilpatric Kirkpatrick Sandlin Blackett Cavan Glendenning Lockerby Soule Blacklock Cavers Glenn Lockery Sterrett Blackstock Dickey Harkness MacGuffey Symington Blackwood Drysdale Inglis MacGuffock Troup Blaylock Forest Kilgore McKittrick Young Brown Forrester Kilpatrick Morton Breckinridge Foster Kirkland Sandilands Other Sept names may be added if proof of valid and historical connection with the Douglas Clan is accepted. iv Septs of Clan Douglas None of the lists of septs, our own list included, provided any documentation about why these names were considered septs. For someone looking online to find their clan affiliation, undocumented and likely erroneous lists of sept names can be problematic at best and deceitful at worst. But where is such documentation found? Sadly, the answer is “on the internet.” Information is easy to find in this age of internet and the simplicity of Wikipedia . But many fail to realize Wikipedia is an “open source” webpage that can be added to or edited by anyone . As a result, many Wikipedia topic pages are filled with speculation and half-truths. While one should not hold much stock in Wikipedia and similar web-info services, such sites can be useful in gleaning other sources to research. And sometimes, even Wikipedia gets it right and Wikipedia has been used as a source for some of the documentation found in this booklet. However, more authoritative sources do exist and much time was taken to search through volumes of Douglas related books, now mostly out of print for over a century, that have been converted to PDF format and placed on the internet. Some of the information in this booklet has been provided by Sept Commissioners of CDSNA and through personal communications with others outside CDSNA. And some of the information in this booklet has been provided through gleanings of the earliest years (1976 - 1995) of CDSNA’s newletters. In fact, the newsletters indicate that CDSNA’s “Official” Bylaw list of sept names may not be listing all the names accepted by CDSNA. So what does all of this mean? It means… the research found in this booklet is not exhaustive or a finished product. The research presented here may not be the most scholarly or presented in the best way -- but this research is verifiable and represents two-plus years of effort that should be maintained by and expanded by other caring members of our extended Clan Douglas family. It is hoped this project will encourage all branches of Clan Douglas (North American, Australian, and European) to communicate with one another and decide on a common list of septs. If for no other reason, this research serves as a valuable beginning to atone for the lack of verifiable information our Clan has to offer new or existing members about the surnames affiliated with Douglas. This work is as much for our future members as it is for our current ones and it is hoped this will not be put aside and forgotten but will, instead, be used and improved as a tool for answering the question so often asked by Scottish festival attendees at our Douglas tents: Why is that name a sept of Douglas? Moving FORWARD and Making Sure, Harold Edington July 2011 v Septs of Clan Douglas What is a Sept: In the context of Scottish clans, septs are families that followed another family's chief. Such smaller families might be linked to the larger family’s chief by marriage, by contract, or as a means of protection from other families. Sept Criteria Determining which surnames are septs of a clan is one of the prerogatives of the clan chief. Clan Douglas, while an armerigious (arms-bearing) family recognized as a clan by the Lord Lyon of Scotland, currently has no standing chief. Without a standing chief, CDSNA has selected certain guidelines in determining the surnames it accepts as Septs of Clan Douglas. The criteria used for determining what surnames are (or can be) Septs of Clan Douglas (as published in the August 2005 dubh ghlase ) are as follows: [A] Those of the surname of Douglas, in all of its many and varied forms, are not Septs: they are FAMILY and are to be treated as such. [B] Those families whose surname was originally Douglas but have suffered a change of name due to the conditions prevailing at some point in history; i.e. Drysdale. [C] Those families who were known to be followers of the Douglas family in the past. [D] Those families who are known to have served the Douglas family in times past as either estate managers, farm workers, men-at-arms, scribes, chancellors; i.e. Bell, Symington, Young, etc. [E] Those descendants of a female line of the Douglas family who are able to prove their descent and do not owe allegiance to any other family or clan. [F] Those descendants whose families originated within the known Douglas territories but were too small to have a family status and have no allegiance to any other family or clan. [G] Those descendants of families who are known to have broken away from their accepted group and are also known to have re-settled within the Douglas territories. [Researcher note: The criteria presented here for sept names is not listed in the CDSNA Bylaws. At this time, no “official” criteria exist but this list provides a reasonable basis for surname inclusions.] One of the best sources for finding when our CDSNA septs were accepted as such can be found in our earliest CDSNA newsletters. Unfortunately, CDSNA does not currently have a complete set of newsletters in its archives but a project has begun to find and electronically convert and store the newsletter available into a clan archive. vi Septs of Clan Douglas A (really) Short History of CDSNA Septs A CDSNA newsletter from Sep/Oct 1988 indicates many of the septs accepted by CDSNA -- Cavers, Drysdale, Forest (Forrest), Forrester (Forster, Foster), Glendinning (Clendinning), Inglis, Kirkpatrick (Kilpatrick, Gilpatric(k)), Lockerby, MacGuffie (MacGuffey, McGuffock), Morton (Mortoun), and Sandilands (Sandlin) -- were accepted at its organization in 1975 based on the original list from the book Scots Kith and Kin . After 1975, other septs were accepted. According to documentation (CDSNA newsletters) available, these septs followed: Year Accepted Sept Name 1978 Blackstock (Blacklock, Blackwood) 1984 Young (Younger), Symington (Syme, Simms, Simonton), Soule (Soulis) Bell, MacKittrick (McKittrick) 1985 Brown (Broun, Brownlee), Kilgore, Kirkland 1987 Dickey (Dickie, Dick), Blalock (Blayloc, Blaylock, Blellock, Bleloch, Blellloch) 1988 Sterrett 1989? Agnew, Cavan, Glenn, Lochery (noted as septs in a 1954 publication by Ann & Alastair Dallas titled Badges of the Scottish Clans .) ???? Breckinridge It should be noted that variations of a sept name were also included at the time of ‘adoption’ (such as Syme, Simms, Simonton with Symington) that are no longer listed in our CDSNA Bylaws while others are listed separately (such as Brownlee) and still others appear to have been replaced by a variant (i. e., Blaylock for Blalock). Bell’s inclusion and later removal from the list of recognized septs can be explained by the request made to CDSNA to remove the name Bell from our sept list when Clan Bell was formed as a separate entity.