« Reply #19 on: Monday 13 August 12 13:19 BST (UK) »
sometimes there's a grain of truth in these old family stories and it's possible that a conscripted soldier or sailor or merchant could have brought back a wife and family from foreign lands - and I believe in some countries (such as Italy) girls take maternal line surnames, which in the UK would be rather confusing.
If you look at the "historical directory" website you'll see that large towns in the 1800s had an unbelievable number of foreign consulates - something you don't see nowadays.
Scotland historically has a tie between Queen Mary of Scots and King Philip of Spain so it's possible that the story might have travelled down several centuries. Advancing into the 17th century where we traded around the world, there was a spice war between the Scots, Portuguese, Spanish and English with Dutch involvement.
Out of curiosity I did a search for: Mendosa @
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue:- <<Notes for the examination of William Crightone, Jesuit, about 12,000 crowns delivered to the Jesuit Claude de Lorrayne; complaint about him to the duke of Guise by Thomas Morgayn that Crightone was an agent of the Queen of Scots. His intercepted letters into Scotland and to Bernardo de Mendosa; [year 1584].>>
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie: Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke
