McAninch Surname and Robertsons in Clan Donnachaidh?

 

Could the McAninch surname have come from Robertsons in Perthshire, northern Scotland?

After 1745, after the Scots lost the big battle at Culloden, some of the Robertsons changed

their name to Inches. In 1933, Clan Donnachaidh [see Note 1] was apparently prepared to

accept “McAninch” into their Clan Society, according to the letter transcribed below.

 

George S. McAninch was born in 1901, in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania , and also lived in

Detroit, Michigan; south-western New York State; and later moved to Colorado in the 1950’s.

George died in 1972, and is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Denver, Colorado. One of his

sons, Harold S. McAninch, currently lives in Sun City, Arizona, and Harold has kept the

original of this 1933 letter that his father George received from Clan Donnachaidh.

 

The 1933 Letter from Clan Donnachaidh

 

Clan Donnachaidh

 

Private

 

 [1]

 

Glendevon

{ Dollar

 

 [2]

 

 

{ Scotland

8.7.33 [8 July 1933]

 

Dear Mr. McAninch,

[3]

 

 

I regret delay, but am now answering in place of Miss Robertson, who has been

 

pretty worried of late, & unfit for much.

 

 

Your name is most uncommon -- to me, at least -- and, as you say, may belong to

[4]

the Robertsons of Inches Inshes, as some of them seem to have altered their name

[5]

in or after the '45, to Inches. Yours would be even more a good name to hide under.

[6]

 

Of course you know there is an old western Clan MacInnes from MacAongas (Angus)

which is almost pronounced as broadly as "Innes", the 'g' being slurred over.

 

 

I have only the evidence of a family or two named Inches as to their tradition,

 

and strange to say, they are found in the midst of the Robertsons of Perthshire,

 

near Dunkeld -- not Inverness where the cadet family Robertson of Inshes owned

 

the land of that name -- and their head went under the name of Baron Inches

 

(of Ledaig – now keep this name in mind, as old Miss Inches, who alone knew,

 

is long dead, & I alone (I believe, at least) in the Clan Society have this from her).

 

 

She did not know -- nor had she said herself -- they were from the R’s [Robertsons]

 

of Inches, in Invernessshire; merely that "they were Robertsons before the year 1745;

[6]

& took the name of Inches to hide their identity."

 

 

Mac-an-Inch, would be good Gaelic for the name, as you say; and this lady was born

 

where the Gaelic was partly dying out -- so I have heard – in certain families, though

 

near each other, so they might have changed to Inches.

 

 

___________________________________________________________________________

McAninch Family History NL, v.XIII.n.1  January 2005  Copyright Frank McAninch  page 2005-07

 

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