207 items

• Clan Haldane History & Origins: Loch Lomond, Perthshire & Scottish Heritage

  Clan Haldane are among the older families of Perthshire and the Loch Lomond country, their name bound to lands held since the early medieval period. Their motto Suffer speaks to...

• Clan Dewar History, Motto & Origins: Saint Fillan, Bannockburn & Scottish Heritage

  Discover the history, motto, and origins of Clan Dewar — the hereditary keepers of Saint Fillan’s relics in Perthshire, present at Bannockburn in 1314, and the founding family of Dewar’s...

• Spiers History & Origins: The Speirs Spelling, the Scottish and Irish Split & How to Search Both Forms

  Spiers and Speirs are one name with the vowels transposed, and the same Glasgow merchant appears under both in Court of Session papers. Which form dominates in Scotland, which in...

• Irwin History & Origins: Bonshaw Tower, the Irvines of Drum & the Ulster Spelling

  Irwin is a Dumfriesshire name that made its fortune in Ulster. Bonshaw Tower on the Kirtle Water, the Irvines of Drum on Deeside, Bruce's charter of 1323, and why Erwin...

• The Killing Time: Covenanter Faith, Persecution and Memory

  The Killing Time brought harsh persecution of Scottish Covenanters. Follow the people, worship, resistance and laws behind the story, with a clear distinction between the Revolution of 1688–89 and the...

• Sibbald History & Origins: Sir Robert Sibbald, the Blue Whale & Balgonie in Fife

  The blue whale was once called Sibbald's rorqual. Sir Robert Sibbald founded Edinburgh's physic garden and its college of physicians, while the Sibbalds of Balgonie held one of the oldest...

• Clan Chisholm History: Strathglass, Erchless and Feros Ferio

  Explore Chisholm history from the Borders to Strathglass, Erchless Castle, the Feros Ferio motto and the Scottish Family Crest gift range.

• Clan Forbes History, Motto & Origins: Druminnor Castle, the Gordon Rivalry & Scottish Heritage

  Discover the history, motto, and origins of Clan Forbes — one of Aberdeenshire’s great noble families, Premier Lords of Scotland, bearers of the motto Grace Me Guide, defined by their...

• Clan Crichton History, Motto & Origins: Crichton Castle, the Black Dinner & Scottish Heritage

  Discover the history, motto, and origins of Clan Crichton — a Midlothian family who rose to control Scotland as Chancellors, orchestrated the notorious Black Dinner of 1440, built the Italian...

• The National Covenant of 1638: Faith, Protest and Royal Power

  Signed at Greyfriars in 1638, the National Covenant joined religious conviction to an argument about royal power. Read what the document promised, how local copies spread and why its legacy...

• Clan Wood: History, Motto & Origins in Fife

  Clan Wood of Fife carry a topographic surname as plain as its meaning — the family of the wood — but their most celebrated figure, Sir Andrew Wood of Largo,...

• Clan Drummond History, Motto & Origins: Perthshire, Drummond Castle & Scottish Heritage

  Discover the history, motto, and origins of Clan Drummond — a Perthshire family connected to the Scottish royal line through Annabella Drummond, keepers of one of Scotland’s finest formal gardens,...

• Ballentine Scottish Surname History: Borders Origins & a Royal Translator

  Ballentine traces to a Borders 'dean's farmstead' and links royal translator John Bellenden to Sir Walter Scott's printer, James Ballantyne.

• Scottish Clans Connected to Clan Chattan: History, Alliance & Highland Legacy

  Discover the clans connected to Clan Chattan — MacKintosh, MacPherson, Davidson, MacGillivray, MacBain, Shaw and more. Explore the great Highland confederation and the families that formed it.

• Walker Irish Surname: History, Origins & Heritage of a Derry Family

  Walker arrived in Ireland with Ulster-Scots cloth workers during the Plantation era, then became forever tied to Derry through the 1689 siege's clergyman-turned-governor, Rev. George Walker.

• Kilchurn Castle History, Clan Campbell Connections & Loch Awe

  Kilchurn Castle rises from a rocky peninsula at the head of Loch Awe in Argyll — one of Scotland's most photographed ruins and the ancestral stronghold of the Campbells of...

• Scottish Philosophy Shaped the Declaration of Independence

  Thomas Jefferson is credited with writing the Declaration of Independence. But the ideas behind it — natural rights, the consent of the governed, the right to resist tyranny — did...

• Abernethy Scottish Surname History: Origins, the Crown of Scotland & Perthshire Heritage

  Discover the Abernethy surname — a Pictish place-name from Perthshire tied to the Earls of Fife, the Battle of Harlaw, and the hereditary right to bear the Crown of Scotland....

• Clan Munro: History, Motto & Origins at Foulis Castle

  Explore Clan Munro’s Easter Ross homeland at Foulis Castle, the Dread God motto and the separate careers of Robert Monro of Foulis and Robert Monro of Obsdale. Follow the family...

• 20 Rare Clan Names Your DNA Test Won't Tell You About (2026)

  Your DNA test said "Scottish" — but it can't tell you which clan. Discover 20 rare Scottish clan names with real territories, mottos and histories that mainstream ancestry platforms miss,...

• Dirom Scottish Family History, Origins and Clan Connections

  Discover the history of the Scottish Dirom name, including its possible origins, regional record trail, notable bearers, and allied-family heritage context.

• Turing History & Origins: Foveran in Aberdeenshire, the 1638 Baronetcy & Alan Turing

  Turing is an Aberdeenshire surname. We follow it from the vanished Turing's Tower at Foveran and the baronetcy created in 1638, through the family's own account of a Norman name...

• Carstairs History & Origins: William Carstares, Lanarkshire & Scottish Heritage

  The Carstairs surname traced from the Lanarkshire barony: the Brittonic place-name behind Casteltarres, the Roman fort at Castledykes, the bishops' castle, and William Carstares, tortured in 1684 and running Scotland's...