Sept of Clan Gordon confusion

[sirsimon]

Hello,

My family were the Steele/Steel family who lived in Stapleton in Cumberland on the English/Scottish border.

After a recent ancestry dna test, it stated I had 35% scottish blood.

Now after studying my tree, the only line this could come from is from the Steele family.

I have a theory that the Steeles were from Dumfriesshire and moved south into Cumberland for some unknown reason.

I believe the Steeles were septs of Clan Gordon.

However I am a little confused, I have read three books on scottish clans and septs and none of them list the Steeles as a sept, however a few websites online do.

Is there a reason why the publications do not mention my family, but websites do?

Sorry if it sounds dumb, but it's confusing me

my thanks

[Forfarian]

I believe the Steeles were septs of Clan Gordon.
However I am a little confused, I have read three books on scottish clans and septs and none of them list the Steeles as a sept, however a few websites online do.
Is there a reason why the publications do not mention my family, but websites do?

Probably because there is a lot of rubbish on websites put there by people who either don't know what they are talking about, or who are motivated by the (perfectly understandable but much to be regretted) desire to sell clan paraphernalia to unsuspecting people who are under the misapprehension that all Scots belong to a clan.

According to The Surnames of Scotland the surname Steel/Steele/Steill and other spelling variants is a name of local origin, and cites places of that name in Ayrshire, Berwickshire and Dumfries-shire. Almost all the early documentary references to Steel(e)s (and variants) are from the southern parts of Scotland. So your idea that your Steel(e)s may have come from Dumfries-shire seems quite reasonable.

It may well be that there were some Steel(e)s who lived in Gordon territory and gave their allegiance to Clan Gordon, but that is a long way from meaning that all Steel(e)s were part of Clan Gordon, let alone related to Clan Gordon. I am not aware of Clan Gordon having any extensive historical territories in south-west Scotland, but I would be happy to be corrected about that. In any case the clans were a feature of society in the Highlands, not the rest of Scotland, until it became fashionable to reinvent Lowland and Border families as so-called clans in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In terms of genuinely researching family history, all the stuff about clans and septs and other fantasies peddled by the Brigadoon industry is not really helpful. Just stick to the verifiable records and trace back from there. Never believe anything you find online unless it is an image of an original document - and even then be wary of errors.

[sirsimon]

thank you for replying

Yes I agree, there are a lot of fantasies and falsehoods surrounding the clan system of Scotland. I don't think my family was a proper clan, a small sept is more likely

My family wasn't a reiver border clan because they are not listed as such, however they did marry into some large families such as the Routledges.

Their absence could be explained in that they didn't originate in Cumbria and it is more likely they fled the border south

Most of the clan maps have Clan Gordon being located in the south west, a branch clan from the ones in Aberdeenshire

[Skoosh]

I think the Gordon's had lands in the south of Scotland before moving north. Black places them in Berwickshire & dismisses any notion that they were ever a clan as such. They, as major land-owners, had feudal control over a multiplicity of tenants, not quite the same thing.

Skoosh.

[Forfarian]

I don't think my family was a proper clan, a small sept is more likely

But if they were not part of any clan, they cannot have been a sept, because the definition of a sept is that it was a subdivision of a tribe or clan.

[hdw]

There is a village called Gordon in Berwickshire. Here is the Wikipedia article, for what it's worth -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon,_Scottish_Borders

Harry

[Forfarian]

G F Black, in The Surnames of Scotland, quotes Wood's edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland: "Owing to the fact that places names of this form occur in France it has been customary to trace the Gordons to a continental source. The earliest known home of the Scots family was in Berwickshire, and here we find a place name Gordon, from which the surname may have been derived. There was a distinguished family named Gurdon in Hampshire, England, with whom it has been suggested they were connected. It has been further suggested that the Gordons were cadets of the Swintons as the coats of arms borne by the two families are the same".

He goes on to say, "The Gordons are by most writers referred to as a 'clan', but they have not the slightest claim to be considered as such - the relation of their followers to the chief was entirely feudalistic".

He also quotes Watt's History of Aberdeen and Banff: "Sir Alexander Seton in 1408 married Elizabeth Gordon and became the ancestor of the house of Huntly .... He is said to have rewarded all who took the name of Gordon, and became his vassals, with a gift of meal, whence certain branches of the clan were called the 'Bow o' Meal Gordons' .... It is only by such process of adoption that the large number of Gordon families existing as early as the latter half of the fifteenth century cane be accounted for".

I think I remember reading somewhere that Gordon is an anglicisation of Gaelic Gearr Dłn, which would mean something like 'short fortification', but I cannot find that reference now.