A single sheet of paper, pulled from under a stone cairn on King William Island on 5 May 1859, is why the McClintock name sits in every serious history of Arctic exploration. It was the only written record ever recovered from Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, and the ship that put the search party ashore was commanded by Francis Leopold McClintock.
He was born at Dundalk in County Louth, which usually ends the conversation about his surname before it starts. It should not. The name is Gaelic, its root Scottish, and his family had been in Ireland long enough for both to be true at once.
What Does McClintock Mean?
Son of the servant of a saint. The Oxford-backed Dictionary of American Family Names reads it as an anglicized Gaelic Mac Gille Fhionndaig, son of the servant of Fionntóg, a pet form built on fionn, white or fair. Popular accounts name the saint as Findan or Fintan of Clonard; the dictionaries stop at the diminutive, and that caution is worth copying.
The grammar matters more than the saint. Gille means a lad, a servant, a devotee, and Gaelic used it to build names saying follower of rather than descended from, the machinery that also produced Gilmore, from Mac Giolla Mhuire.
Say Mac Gille Fhionndaig at speaking speed and the middle collapses. The records show it, running from the barely recognizable Mcgellentak through Maclintock and M'Clintock to the modern spellings. Whether your branch writes Mc or Mac tells you nothing, as our piece on Mc versus Mac explains.
Is the Galloway Origin Story True?
Probably not, and it is worth saying so plainly. McClintock is often filed with the Galloway names; the standard etymological entries put it elsewhere.
The earliest cited bearer is Duncan Mcgellentak, a witness in west Perthshire in 1549, and the surname's Scottish home is given as Argyllshire, specifically Lorn around Lochaweside: Highland country, not the Stewartry and not Wigtownshire. Our survey of the clans and families of Argyll covers that ground.
Galloway did produce a crop of Mc- surnames, but a different set, gathered in our guide to the families of Ayrshire and Galloway. If somebody hands you a Wigtownshire pedigree for a McClintock line, ask which document it rests on.
Why Are There Almost No McClintocks in Scotland?
Because the name left. The 1901 census of Scotland returned 79 bearers at 3,675th; Ireland returned 659 that year at 1,091st, and the 2020 US census counted 8,506 at 4,056th.
A name that is scarce at home, commoner in Ulster and commoner again across the Atlantic is behaving like a Plantation-era transplant, of the type traced in our account of the Plantation surnames who came and stayed.
How Did the Family Settle in Donegal and Louth?
Donegal first. The surname is principally associated with that county, and the peerage granted the family in 1868 was Baron Rathdonnell, of Rathdonnell in the County of Donegal. The wider group appears in our piece on the surnames of County Donegal.
The explorer's branch had moved east. His father, Henry McClintock, was collector of customs at Dundalk, and that is where Francis Leopold was born on 8 July 1819, into an Ulster-Scots family of Scottish Gaelic derivation already generations deep in Ireland. The Irish half of the story sits in our history of the Irish McClintocks.
What Exactly Did the Fox Find?
After the Admiralty gave up, Lady Franklin bought the steam schooner Fox by public subscription and gave McClintock command. He sailed from Aberdeen on 2 July 1857 with twenty-five men, was beset in the ice for eight months from that September, reached Beechey Island in August 1858 and sent out sledge parties the following spring.
On 5 May 1859 Lieutenant William Hobson, working a separate track, opened a cairn on the northwest corner of King William Island. Inside was a printed Admiralty form carrying two entries. The first, dated 28 May 1847, ended with the words all well. The second was scribbled around the margins on 25 April 1848: ships beset since 12 September 1846 and deserted on 22 April, Franklin dead since 11 June 1847, nine officers and fifteen men lost, and the surviving 105 under Crozier starting for the Back River next morning.
He was knighted on his return, published The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas, rose to flag rank and died on 17 November 1907, having already man-hauled some 1,400 miles on Kellett's expedition of 1852 to 1854.
How Do You Work a McClintock Line Backward?
- Start in Ireland. The numbers say your line sat there for generations, so exhaust Donegal, Tyrone, Antrim, Derry and Louth first.
- Search McClintock, MacLintock, M'Clintock, McLintock and Maclintock as one set at every stage.
- Expect Presbyterian and Church of Ireland registers to carry the family where civil ones fail. For the American branches, see the Ulster road into Appalachia.
- Cross to Scotland only with a named emigrant and a date, then use civil registration from 1855 and the Old Parish Registers of Argyll and Perthshire.
Own a Piece of McClintock Heritage
Few surnames get to point at one sheet of paper and say that one of ours went and found it. The McClintock range keeps that spirit to hand: a crest mug, a garden flag and an ornament in a silver frame, all on a tartan background. No sett was ever attached to this surname and no chief stands behind it, so read the cloth as a design made in the name's honor. Our guide to who may wear which tartan covers the real conventions.
Frequently Asked Questions About the McClintock Name
Is McClintock Scottish or Irish?
Both, in sequence. The root is Scottish Gaelic, Mac Gille Fhionndaig, and the bulk of the family has been Irish for centuries, concentrated in Donegal and the neighboring Ulster counties.
Which saint is in the name?
One whose name came through Gaelic as Fionntóg, a pet form of an element meaning white or fair. Findan and Fintan are the usual guesses; the dictionaries commit to neither.
Was Sir Leopold McClintock Scottish?
He was Irish-born, at Dundalk in 1819, from an Ulster-Scots family whose surname originates in Scottish Gaelic. Calling him simply Scottish is wrong, and so is calling the name Irish in origin.
For designs that reflect both the Scottish origin and the family’s long Irish chapter, browse our McClintock Scottish and Irish family gift collection.
Sources and Further Reading
- Dictionary of American Family Names: McClintock — Mac Gille Fhionndaig and Fionntóg.
- Surname Database: McClintock — Duncan Mcgellentak, 1549, and the Lorn association.
- Francis Leopold McClintock — the Dundalk birth and the Fox.
- Franklin's lost expedition — Hobson's find and both dated entries.
- Baron Rathdonnell — the McClintock peerage of 1868, designated of Donegal.
- McClintock in the 1901 Scottish census — 79 bearers, ranked 3,675th.
- McClintock in the 1901 Irish census — 659 bearers, ranked 1,091st.
- McClintock in the 2020 US census — 8,506 bearers, ranked 4,056th.
- George F. Black, The Surnames of Scotland — early spellings of Mac Gille names.
- ScotlandsPeople — the registers, with phonetic searching.