At its height the McCaskill farm at Rubha an Dùnain on Skye ran to 37,500 acres and supported seventy men with their families. People were still living there in 1861. Then the ground was cleared, and today the peninsula south of the Cuillin has no inhabitants at all.
That is the shape of this surname in a sentence. A Norse name, a Skye headland, and an emptying that carried the name to North America in numbers Scotland never got back.
What Does McCaskill Actually Mean?
Son of Asgall, and Asgall is a Viking.
The Gaelic is Mac Asgaill. Asgall is a shortened Gaelic handling of the Old Norse personal name Ásketill, built from áss, a god, and ketill, a sacrificial cauldron, a word that also served for a helmet. God's cauldron, or god's helmet. Either way it is a pagan name, and it was still passing down Gaelic-speaking households four hundred years after the Norse gave up their gods.
McCaskill belongs with the small group of Highland surnames that are Norse at the root and Gaelic in every other respect, as our histories of Clan Gunn and the Dingwall name also show. The Hebrides spent four centuries under Norwegian lordship, and the Treaty of Perth in 1266 handed them to Scotland without emptying a single house.
Is MacCaskill a Sept of Clan MacLeod?
It is listed as one on the clan's own roll of septs and associated families, and the relationship behind the listing is better documented than most, though the detail varies by source.
The MacAskills are given as followers of the MacLeods, possibly from as early as the fourteenth century. Some accounts attach them to the MacLeods of Dunvegan on Skye; others specify the MacLeods of Lewis. Both branches descend from Leòd, said to be a younger son of Olaf the Black, King of Man, whose sons Tormod and Torquil founded the Dunvegan and Lewis lines. The MacAskills also held Dunscaith Castle on the Sleat peninsula before it passed to MacLeod hands.
The geography is not in dispute. This is a Skye and Outer Hebridean name, sitting inside the MacLeod world rather than beside it. Our accounts of Clan MacLeod at Dunvegan and MacLeod of Lewis cover both branches, and our survey of the clans of Skye places the smaller island families in context.
What Was Rubha an Dùnain?
The most interesting patch of ground any Scottish surname can point at, and almost nobody knows it.
The peninsula lies south of the Cuillin, rising over thirty meters above the sea, with Loch na h-Àirde behind it. Occupation runs from a Mesolithic rock shelter through a chambered cairn of the second or third millennium BC and an Iron Age dun. Then the extraordinary part: a rare medieval harbor complex with docks, boat noosts, quays and a stone-built canal. A boat timber recovered in 2000 was carbon dated to around AD 1100, and survey work in 2009 found water-level management built into the canal.
The MacAskills held this as their home ground, with an eighteenth-century tacksman's house among the farm buildings. The community lasted until 1861 and was then swept away, its people going to North America and to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Our account of the Highland Clearances covers what was done and why.
Why Is McCaskill an American and Canadian Name?
Because the emigration was proportionally enormous. Genealogical databases record roughly six times as many McCaskills in the United States as in Scotland, and Canada more than half the Scottish figure again. The 1901 Scottish census had 485 bearers, ranked 1,211th.
Nova Scotia took the largest share. Gaelic settlement there began in 1773 with the Hector at Pictou, the legal barrier to Cape Breton settlement fell in 1784, and more than fifty thousand Gaelic-speaking settlers reached Nova Scotia between 1815 and 1870. By 1850 Gaelic was the third most spoken European language in Canada. Our piece on the Scottish-Canadian link follows that movement, and the Americans the Clearances created follows the southern branch.
The famous one is Angus MacAskill, born in 1825 at Sheabie on Berneray in the Sound of Harris, whose family reached Englishtown on Cape Breton around 1831. He grew to seven feet nine inches, was recorded by Guinness as the tallest non-pathological giant on record, and died at St Ann's on 8 August 1863. Museums at Englishtown and at Dunvegan keep his belongings, which is a neat summary of where this surname lives.
Which Records Should a McCaskill Work?
- Search McCaskill, MacCaskill, MacAskill, McAskill and Caskie together. The Mac and Mc split alone will cost you half the family.
- Work Skye first: Bracadale, Duirinish, Minginish and Sleat, then Harris and Berneray. Our ScotlandsPeople guide explains the parish register coverage for the islands, which is thinner than the mainland's.
- Expect patronymics rather than fixed surnames in the earliest island entries, and the same handful of forenames in every household in a township.
- If the Scottish trail dies around the 1840s, cross the Atlantic. Nova Scotia and the Carolinas hold records for families whose Scottish paper stops at the eviction.
- Use estate and emigration papers as well as registers. Cleared tenants appear in rentals and passenger lists when they appear nowhere else.
Own a Piece of McCaskill Heritage
Not many families can say their surname is a Norse god's name still spoken in Gaelic eight hundred years later. Three McCaskill items carry it: a mug, an outdoor flag, and an ornament in a silver frame, all showing a family crest on woven tartan. The MacCaskill sett on record is a twentieth-century design worked off the MacLeod pattern, not anything the Skye tenants wore, so read that cloth as a heritage choice rather than an inheritance, though the MacLeod link puts the choice on firmer ground than most. Our guide to wearing tartan shows where the line falls.
Frequently Asked Questions About the McCaskill Name
Is McCaskill a Viking name?
At the root, yes. Mac Asgaill is son of Asgall, from Old Norse Ásketill. The family itself was Gaelic-speaking and Hebridean long before records begin.
Are McCaskill and MacAskill the same name?
Yes, the same Gaelic original written differently by different clerks. Treating them as separate surnames is the fastest way to lose a Skye line.
Why are there so many McCaskills in Nova Scotia?
Because the Skye and Harris townships were cleared, and Cape Breton took much of that population.
Sources and Further Reading
- FamilySearch: McCaskill — Mac Asgaill, Ásketill and the country counts.
- MacAskill — the Gaelic forms, Dunscaith and the MacLeod service.
- Clan MacLeod Societies: septs and associated families — the clan's own roll, where MacAskill and its McCaskill spelling sit under MacLeod of Harris and Dunvegan.
- Rubha an Dùnain — the Norse canal, the AD 1100 boat timber, the 37,500 acres and the clearance.
- Clan MacLeod — Leòd, Dunvegan and the two branches.
- Angus MacAskill — Berneray 1825 to St Ann's 1863, and the two museums.
- Canadian Gaelic — the Hector of 1773, the settlers of 1815 to 1870 and the 1850 peak.
- McCaskill in the 1901 Scottish census — 485 bearers, ranked 1,211th.
- ScotlandsPeople — registers and census images for Skye and Harris.