Dad and the MacDonalds

My dad loves family history. I remember driving to North Carolina with him and my older brother, Peter, one summer, to visit gravestones where our Moody and other Southern ancestors are buried. He knocked on the doors of people very willing to show their southern hospitality, inviting us to eat of their honey and listen to them fiddle (this did, in reality, happen, and it was AWESOME).

Dad has traveled to Scotland and countries Scandinavian (for work-related reasons) and found time to drive to villages where his ancestors lived for centuries before traveling to America, to ask the people living there about them.

I have always enjoyed the family stories he tells, even though my own family history skills have yet to be put to the test. Rootsweb.com, he tells me, is a really great place to find stories about your ancestors.

Dad read a story on rootsweb.com that took place when the English were trying to systematically break up the Scottish clans after the 1740's. First, some background information about Scotland: In AD 79, Scotland consisted of warring Iron tribes and by the end of the 900's, was one kingdom, Alba, with Gaelic as its language, a template for modern-day Scotland.

The Romans, who invaded during the first century, eventually had to leave what they had conquered, and Scotland had divided into four different sections: the Picts, the Britons, the Dal Riata, and the Angles (invaders who brought the Anglo-Saxon language). You can read more about the Scots here at http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/.

The beginning of conflict between England and Scotland occurred when, in 1286, King Alexander III of Scotland died in an accident. His predecessor, Margaret, the Maid of Norway, died soon afterwards, and both John Balliol and Robert Bruce tried to claim the throne. Edward I of England, seeing an opportunity to rule Scotland after being asked to mediate the dispute, decided he would judge over all those trying to claim the throne so that, no matter what, the new king would already have recognized his authority.

King Edward did win control of Scotland, but not until after a lot of fruitless warfare.

Scotland was eventually declared independent when Edward the III was forced to recognize King Bruce, who threatened to invade England. The Jacobite rebellions occurred when the Scottish supported the Stuart line instead of the ruling Hanovers in England, who took control in 1701 after an Act of Settlement. http://www.scotclans.com/scottish_history/articles/clan_system.html

The story that my dad found is an important part of this. Allegedly,

the sons of the clan chiefs were sent to England to be educated and thus, hopefully, lose all loyalty and connection to the clans which they were meant eventually to rule and, inadvertently, give their allegiance to the system with which they had grown up, the English.

The first MacDonald who went to Oxford University was visited by his mother at one point, to see how he was doing. He told her that the people where he was living were crazy.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well," he explained, "the person on the one side of me keeps pounding on the wall, and the person on the other side won't stop moaning."

She asked him what he did.

"I just sit here quietly and play my bagpipes."

In an effort that was eventually successful, after the termination of the Jacobite movement in Scotland, the British were able to end the clan system, practically if not traditionally, and regain control. Perhaps the sons of the clan chiefs were no longer truly invested in the future of their people, alienated and estranged, and did not have the loyalties needed to command armies. The Scottish clans to this day are still rich culturally, bagpipe-playing, tartan-wearing.

Why do we know stories of our ancestors from hundreds of years ago? We pass down the stories of our ancestors from one generation to the next, and hope that in all the kerfaffle of modern day and oral retellings, we don't lose the essence of them.