The McAdoo Clan — A Family of Connected People

When I began my genealogy research in 2004, I focused on my ancestors and my wife Virginia’s ancestors. Starting with very little information, our family tree has grown, and I have learned a great deal about our ancestors. Early in my research I faced the inevitable issue of where do you stop. My curiosity and fascination with discovering new information and the interrelatedness of families helped me decide to include all families in my tree where I could find a relationship. How far I expand those relationships is an open question at this time, but for now, if I can connect a name to someone in my tree, I add the person.

I have named my tree The McAdoo Clan because my paternal roots and Ginnie’s maternal roots are in Ulster, Ireland, and probably originated in the Scottish lowlands. However, our roots are equally centered in Yorkshire, England. I’m not sure that I have a good explanation for why I chose to give my research an Irish/Scots focus, perhaps it’s my fascination about the two countries or my interest in the surname McAdoo.

More recently, I have begun connecting with people with the McAdoo surname in their family, but we have not yet found a common connection. My research and that of other researchers suggests that the McAdoo surname encompassed very few families in Ireland and Scotland. So few in fact that it can be assumed we are all related. Those connections may very well be found in Ireland, but that research is difficult because many of us have no known family in Ireland, and there are very few records available in Ireland.

From my perspective, I consider anyone related to me by blood, through marriage, or surname to be a member of the McAdoo Clan. It is a clan of family connections and relationships. While my McAdoo heritage is Ulster Scots or Ulster Presbyterian, our clan includes many ethnic and religious backgrounds.

I believe the following terms found in Wikipedia might be helpful in better understanding some of the terms associated with clans—

Clan

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be merely symbolical in nature, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the clan's unity. When this ancestor is not human, it is referred to as an animalian totem. Clans can be most easily described as tribes or sub-groups of tribes. The word clan is derived from 'clann' meaning 'children' in the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages. The word was taken into English about 1425 as a label for the tribal nature of Irish and Scottish Gaelic society.[1] The Gaelic term for clan is fine /finɨ/. Clans are located in every country; members may identify with a coat of arms to show they are an independent clan.

Organization of clans in anthropology

Some clans are patrilineal, meaning its members are related through the male line; for example, the clans of Armenia. Others are matrilineal; its members are related through the female line, such as in some Native American clans. Still other clans are bilateral, consisting of all the descendants of the apical ancestor through both the male and female lines; the Irish and Scottish clans are examples. Another example is the Jewish people defined mainly as the clan of descendants of one male ancestor (Jacob) and four female ancestors (Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah). Whether a clan is patrilineal, matrilineal, or bilateral depends on the kinship rules and norms of their society.

In different cultures and situations, a clan may mean the same thing as other kin-based groups, such as tribes and bands. Often, the distinguishing factor is that a clan is a smaller part of a larger society such as a tribe, a chiefdom, or a state. Examples include Scottish, Irish, Chinese, Japanese clans and Rajput clans in India and Pakistan, which exist as kin groups within their respective nations. Note, however, that tribes and bands can also be components of larger societies. Probably the most famous tribes, the 12 Biblical tribes of Israel, composed one people. Arab tribes are small groups within Arab society, and Ojibwa bands are smaller parts of the Ojibwa tribe in North America. In some cases multiple tribes recognized the same clans, such as the bear and fox clans of the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes.

Apart from these different traditions of kinship, further conceptual confusion arises from colloquial usages of the term. In post-Soviet countries, for example, it is quite common to speak of clans in reference to informal networks within the economic and political sphere. This usage reflects the assumption that their members act towards each other in a particularly close and mutually supportive way approximating the solidarity among kinsmen. However, the Norse clans, the ätter, can not be translated with tribe or band, and consequently they are often translated with house or line.

Polish clans differ from most others as they are a collection of families who bear the same coat of arms, as opposed to claiming a common descent. This is discussed under the topic of Polish Heraldry.

Clans in indigenous societies are likely to be exogamous, meaning that their members cannot marry one another. In some societies, clans may have an official leader such as a chieftain or patriarch; in others, leadership positions may have to be achieved, or people may say that 'elders' make decisions.

An armigerous clan refers to a Scottish clan, family or name which is registered with the Court of the Lord Lyon and once had a chief who bore undifferenced arms, but does not have a chief currently recognized as such by Lyon Court. Before 1745 all chiefs had arms; however, not all of these are recorded in the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland, which was only established in 1672. In Scottish heraldry undifferenced arms are only held by chiefs or heads of clans, families, or names. A clan is considered a "noble incorporation" because a clan chief is a title of honour in Scotland and the chief confers his or her noble status onto the clan. Because armigerous clans do not have such chiefs, they are not recognised as noble communities and have no legal standing under Scots law.

Because McAdoo is a minor surname, at some point in time, it was incorporated along with other families in the southwest of Scotland into a district clan with a tartan known as the Galloway District tartan. Shown below are three variations of the Galloway plaid.





Sept

A sept is an English word for a division of a family, especially a division of a clan. The word might have its origin from Latin septum "enclosure, fold",[1] or it can be an alteration of sect.[2]

The term is found in both Ireland and Scotland. It is sometimes used to translate the word slíocht, meaning seed, indicating the descendants of a person (i.e., Slíocht Brian Mac Diarmada, the descendants of Brian MacDermott).

Family branches

Síol was used within the context of a family or clan, all who bore the same surname, as a manner of distinguishing one group from another. For example: a family called Mac an Bháird (Anglicised as Ward) might be divided into septs such as Síol Seán Mac Briain, Síol Conchobhair Óg, Síol Sean Cuinn, Síol Cú Chonnacht. All of these individual lines might further sub-divide into still more septs, which in turn sometimes led to a new surname, and/or the emergence of the family considered a clan in their own right. This type of sept was normal in Scotland.

Scotland

In the context of Scottish clans, septs are families that followed another family's chief. These smaller septs would then make up, and be part of, the chief's larger clan. A sept might follow another chief if two families were linked through marriage. However, if a family lived on the land of a powerful laird, they would follow him whether they were related or not. Bonds of manrent were sometimes used to bind lesser chiefs and his followers to more powerful chiefs.

Today sept lists are used by clan societies to recruit new members. Such lists date back to the 19th century, when clan societies and tartan manufacturers attempted to capitalise on the enthusiasm and interest for all things Scottish. Lists were drawn up that linked as many surnames as possible to a particular clan. In this way people without a "clan name" could connect to a Scottish clan and thus feel "entitled" to its tartan. One modern member of the Lyon Court[who?] has described the attribution of such names to particular clans as sometimes being based upon nothing but imagination, and in others cases upon a single recorded instance of a surname. Also, common surnames, found throughout the British Isles, were linked to particular clans. For example, the surname Miller was made a sept of Clan Macfarlane, and Taylor of Clan Cameron. Also, patronymic forms of common personal names were also linked to particular clans.[3] This has led to the false impression that many surnames have one origin and are all related to one another, and that such surnames are historically connected to one particular clan.

Ireland

Historically, the term 'sept' was not used in Ireland until the nineteenth century, long after any notion of clanship had been eradicated. The English word 'sept' is most accurate referring to a sub-group within a large clan; especially when that group has taken up residence outside of their clan's original territory. (O'Neill, MacSweeney, and O'Connor are examples.) Related Irish septs and clans often belong to larger groups, sometimes called tribes, such as the Dál gCais, Uí Néill, Uí Fiachrach, and Uí Maine. Recently, the late Edward MacLysaght suggested the English word 'sept' be used in place of the word 'clan' with regards to the historical social structure in Ireland, so as to differentiate it from the centralized Scottish clan system. This would imply that Ireland possessed no formalised clan system, which is not wholly accurate. Brehon Law, the ancient legal system of Ireland clearly defined the clan system in pre-Norman Ireland, which collapsed after the Tudor Conquest. The Gaels, when speaking of themselves, employed their term 'clan'.

I suspect these terms may be confusing, but what is important to remember is that if your surname is McAdoo, or you are related by blood or marriage to a McAdoo, you are part of the McAdoo Clan.