Did my grandfather have Scottish ancestry?
QMy paternal grandfather, who died when I was 10, believed that he had Scottish ancestry. He used to say a young lady had come down from Scotland with £5 notes in her stays. I have a photo of him wearing kilt, sporran etc including a tie, which is in my possession. On a visit to Edinburgh, years ago I went into a kilt shop and consulted their book of plaids, I believe the tie matched the plaid of the Eracht Cameron clan. I have a hand written family tree by an unknown writer showing Edward Maquerness no DOB or DOD but it says Will in 1695 in Bucknall, Lincolnshire. My grandfather’s mother had a brother Charles Maquerness Smith.
I would like to know if Maquerness is a Scottish surname, maybe with a different spelling. Any information or guidance will be very welcome. All my searching has to be online due to personal circumstance. Jan Timson
AMy first thought is that we may be dealing with two different strands of your family history here. The information passed down of a Scottish connection may well be correct and the best course to determine this would be to trace all of your grandfather’s ancestral lines back as far as possible, looking for a Scottish surname, or perhaps a woman who appears out of nowhere whose surname could potentially be Scottish (bearing in mind that some of the most common Scottish surnames, such as Smith and Brown, are found throughout the British Isles).
The reference to ‘stays’ could suggest your Scottish ancestor arrived prior to the 19th century, although some details could easily have been altered as the story was repeated across the generations, so it is difficult to narrow it down to a particular time period. Equally, I would be cautious in assuming the mystery ancestor was a Cameron based on a tartan worn in a photograph. The association of particular tartans with particular surnames is primarily a 19th century phenomenon, and if the wearer was uncertain of their exact Scottish connection they may simply have picked a tartan they liked the look of.
Turning to the surname Maquerness, the fact a relative was given this name does suggest it had some significance. Surnames as middle names could be the maiden name of a mother or grandmother, although presumably if that were the case you would be aware of it. They could also derive from a relative through marriage, a friend, employer or someone the family admired. From a basic search of online genealogy databases I found few instances of this name. It may be a corruption of Macinnes, for which Macquinnes is listed as as unusual variant in The Surnames of Scotland by George Black (1946). It could also derive from Macneish or Macness, which has the same origin as Macinnes and Macangus, all meaning son of Angus.
I did note that the birth of a Charles Maginess Smith was registered in Wandsworth in 1883 – is this your relative? The middle name of this man is most likely a form of the Irish surname Mcguinness (also derived from Macangus), so if he was a member of your family this seems unlikely to connect to the Scottish young lady of the family story. Again, researching all the relevant ancestral lines may reveal if this name appears as a surname in an earlier generation.
I am unclear if the handwritten family tree showing Edward Maquerness has been passed down through your family, or is something you located through your own research.
If the former, it may be worth investigating further (does it connect to any of your known family lines or locations where your ancestors lived, for example?). Otherwise, it may simply be a coincidence that a similar name appears in your own family some centuries later. KW
He used to say a young lady had come down from Scotland with £5 notes in her stays. I have a photo of him wearing kilt, sporran etc including a tie