Genealogy Chat

Any other Scottish researchers having this problem....... my mother was MacGilvray, but on her father's birth certificate it is McGilvray, also on his death cert. but I have other info spelling his father's name with "a" ! So do I just continue to make them all "Mac" as it may be down to the records? Isobel

Hmm! Hopefully someone Scottish can answer this. I have variant spellings for my relatives. Only recently have I decided my gt gt grandmother was MEALING and not Maling. Also Purvey is "modern" spelling of Purvy, Emms modern for Emmes and Chowns for Chouns. Good luck!

Hi Isobel, I had always been lead to believe it was MC for Catholics and MAC for Protestants - but then again......... She

I always thought Mac was the Scottish way and Mc was the Irish? All my Scottish side so far (and I have a fair few) are Macs. (I am a MacRae myself) Pam

Pam is right ,its scots and irish.Fred.

Hi : to make it more complicated my Irish relative turned himself into a McClune after emigrating from Ireland to Wales in the hope he would be taken as a Scot. Birth name Clune but appears in Welsh census as M'Clune then McClune !!! Mary

My family were all Scottish Presbyterians and are Mcs.We just change from McEwen to McEwan willy nilly. I had the vague idea that Mac was Highland,Mc Lowland- perhaps where the Irish idea arose. Bobby in Melbourne

Thanks for all your help, I think now that the McGilvray spelling has been a mistake and was probably down to the person recording the birth, then I assume on G/F's death they would use the info off original entry. Pam and Fred - I seem to remember my Dad saying about the Scottish/Irish spelling now that you mention it. She - Again that sounds familliar and guess that would also tie in with the Irish spelling to some extent! My own name was MacDonald, my Dad- Ronald! Isobel

I think the idea that a name is spelt "correctly" is something that we only worry about nowadays. I believe the only surviving signatures of William Skakespeare are spelt "wrongly" - and different!

Mc Irish Mac Scottish. Lindax Guess which Iam?

I had always been brought up to beleive the same as She said, one was predominately Catholic and the other Protestant, but since getting into genealogy have found there are many varying opinions. The general consensus seems to be that Mc is just an abbreviation of Mac (both meaning son of). There is a explanation of this on ScottishHistory(.)com Also found this on rootsweb(.)com Mac is the Gaelic word for son. It is now often abbreviated to "Mc", but originally it was the longer word and normally followed by a space and then the surname. There is a tradition that Mac is Irish and Mc is Scottish, but this is false. Both variations are in wide use in both countries. Christine

i have always been told MC for irish and MAC for scottish . and through my research has always been this way , but anything is possible , cheers jackie.

Firstly, it is complete and utter nonsense that Mac and Mc indicate Scottish or Irish origins. They are both EXACTLY the same word, the Mc is actually the abbreviated form of Mac
There is however one distinction you can make as far as differentiating between a name being Scottish or Irish. If it is an O' name it is always Irish (those in Scotland are mostly nineteenth century emigrations), but if it is a mac, mc or other variation it can be both Scottish or Irish!

HeHe Joy, exactly what I Said.


Bill in Oz (Macdonald)

In the BT Telephone directory it states that m', Mc, and Mac are all to be treated as Mac, and then the next letter is used for determining the alphabetical entry in the book.

From http://www.newandusedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=features2&feature_elementID=83

"Everyone knows that names that start with "Mc" are Irish and names that start with "Mac" are Scottish, right" Well . . . no. All "Mc" and "Mac" names are of Gaelic origin and are patronymics, which means that they are derived from the father"s name. "Mac" means "son of", as in MacGannon means "son of Gannon" and MacDonald means "son of Donald".

The original form of "son of" was "Mac", but it was often abbreviated as "Mc" (with or without a line or two dots under the "c" to show that the "a" was removed), or as "Ma". And to make it even more confusing, "Mac" was sometimes abbreviated to a simple "M" ", rather like the Irish "O", meaning "of the line of" (e.g. " O"Neill means "of the line of Neill)."
........ please read on :)

Just out of interest I looked at Ancestry's 1901 Scottish census.
There are 104167 hits for Mac* and 509873 hits for Mc* (it took 26 steps to get the last figure).