Cassels and Possible link to Kennedys

[Forfarian]

Was a brother Thomas mentioned before? Thought there was only John? If he was 61 when he died he would have been born 1627 so a bit after the previous year given as 1603.

No. That's the whole point.

It's clear from the Latin copied from the Glasgow University archives that Gilbert, who matriculated in 1617, was the only brother of John, 6th Earl.

Therefore the Reverend Gilbert who graduated in 1647 and had a brother Thomas isn't the one who matriculated in 1617 - even if he had taken 30 years to get his degree.

Therefore I am wondering whether there is confusion between two different Gilbert Kennedys.

[Sunnyhill]

Have attached a history of the Cassells surname which fits in with the Scottish origins

[Forfarian]

Aye, well, the very first sentences of that look suspect.

"The ancient chronicles of Scotland reveal the early records of the name Cassels as a Norman Surname which ranks as one of the oldest." According to G F Black's The Surnames of Scotland, as already stated upthread, the surname is of local origin from some place of the name, perhaps Cassilis in the parish of Kirkmichael, Ayrshire.

The earliest documented Scottish reference Black found to the surname was in 1624; the earliest record in the surviving records of Cassels in the registers of baptisms and banns is in 1683, and the oldest document in the catalogue of the National Records of Scotland that mentions the surname Cassels dates from 1662/1663. That is well after Norman times, and nowhere near the oldest recorded Scottish surname.

Then, "The history of the name is finely interwoven with the tapestry of Scottish tartans dominating the panorama of the history of Scotland."Leaving aside the pomposity of the purple prose, the surname is associated with the Lowlands, whereas tartans originated, so they say, among the clans of the Highlands.

The Scottish Tartans Register has no record of a Cassels tartan. (If you search https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/index for Cassels, the only result is a tartan called Weathered Cyclist, designed in 2012 (yes, just 12 years ago) by Ali Campbell of Edinburgh. )

This document looks suspiciously like one of the bits of guff spewed out by the Brigadoon industry in order to separate gullible foreign tourists from some of their cash. It contains not one iota of useful information about the actual history of the Cassels family in Scotland. Not one single one of the sources cited is Scottish, unlike the documents cited in Black's book.

In my opinion (others may of course dissent) the best use you could make of this document is to light a fire with it.

[Sunnyhill]

Thanks for that! Were there any parts of it that were right at all?

[Forfarian]

Well, it's all so vague and general that it's hard to say.

There are some statements that are true

"Many Scottish Clans and families trace their origins to Normandy."
"Scribes recorded the name as it sounded, phonetically. It was not unlikely that a person was born with one spelling, married with another, and buried with another."
"The Normans ... were of Viking origin ...."

and there are no doubt others with a grain of truth, for example the potted histories of emigration to Ireland and elsewhere, but these are singularly lacking in details, such as the names of those who emigrated. They are probably standard paragraphs included in all so-called surname histories spewed out by Brigadoon.

I am quite willing to believe that the surname Cassels (with all spelling variants) orginated from the word 'castle', which was imported into the English language from Latin 'castellum' via Norman French. I am perfectly happy to believe that there was a family named Cassels (or variants) in Lincolnshire, but I'd want to see some sort of properly documented source to link them to the Scottish family.

There are other statements I also question. For instance:

"They .... were granted land by David, then King of Scotland ...."
David I, King of Scots, reigned from 1124 to 1153. David II, King of Scots, reigned from 1329 to 1371.

First, you would surely expect a statement like this to specify which King David it refers to and/or when the grant was made? And second, if Brigadoon found a document saying that King David (whichever) granted lands to Cassels, why did Black not find it? 

"The most ancient grant of a Coat of Arms found was ...."
Why, if Brigadoon found a grant with all those heraldic details, did they not say by whom it was granted, to whom it was granted (contrary to widespread belief, a coat of arms is personal to the individual to whom it was granted) and above all when it was granted?