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RE: Sinclair Family Name Tree





On Mon, 2 Dec 2002 09:24:05 -0500 Neil Sinclair <rinsin@globalserve.net>
wrote:

> Dear Russell;
> 
> The mystery is simply this, how do a number of
> individuals, scattered over a
> wide jurisdiction on the west side of Scotland,
> go about either changing
> their name within one to two generations, in
> such a fashion as the old name
> is eliminated for good and the new name is a
> given proper name used in
> Scotland? The evidence we have for the new name
> is birth registrations and

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]


Further to the Archibald McNokaird/Sinclair evidence, in Karen Matheson's
article of a few years ago (available on the website), she also cited
instances of (apparently) the same individuals using the old and new names --
Malcolm McNokaird (1705/08) equates to Malcolm Sinclair (1721/23) in Argyll,
and Donald McNakeard (sic) (1739) equates to Donald Sinclair (1746) in Perth. 
The time lapses (both for the usage instances and the geographical areas)
suggest that the name change situation was a process, rather than an event. 
The "whys" are fascinating -- why a change at all (gradual social deprecation
of the term "ceard" and all its derivatives?), and why a change to Sinclair,
specifically?  The combined phonetic/literal logic of the mac an fhucadair -
MacNucator - Walker progression cited in the Matheson article doesn't seem to
hold true for the mac na ceards - McNokaird - Sinclair situation.  At least I
can't see it.  It's frustrating that no one left an explanation.

rsg
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