Clan MacDonald Family Tree | Scottish Genealogy

hi my name is Jack Rackham and today I'm going to show you the family tree of clan MacDonald one of the largest and most famous houses of Scotland how it rose in power to rival the king how it all came crashing down and all the branches that split off along the way [Music] the name McDonald has become so widespread that besides being the most common surname beginning with Mac in Scotland and the US your first thought on hearing it is probably not the Scottish Highlands but fast food and yes McDonald is just another version of the same name just like McDonald which can both be traced back to this family so it's kind of funny to picture that if you were a real person Ronald McDonald would be somewhere on this tree as well before even getting into the family you may have noticed that Matt's done something clever here and changed the background of the chart title to this plaid design that's the family tartan a special pattern used to identify this particular clan there are a few different designs that will show up on Google if you look for it because there are so many branches in the family but this is the one that developed in modern times as a general overall tartan for the entire clan MacDonald as a matter of fact Tartans as we know them today are a relatively modern invention they only started to appear in the late 16th and early 17th century across the highlands then became popular across Scotland around the time they began to be associated with particular families which would be the 19th century around the time when King George the fourth visited Scotland and wore a tartan himself that doesn't make this design any less symbolic it's just a fun bit of trivia we also have the Macdonald emblem in the corner which translates to by sea by land and the meaning of this phrase is pretty appropriate given the family's early history as seafarers and kings of the Isles before there was a clan MacDonald there was the house of Ivar or even named after the man Eva who appeared in Ireland in the 1850s and became king of Dublin some scholars think this is the same man as Ivar the boneless since the two were never seen in the same place at the same time Eva disappears from the record in Ireland at the same time that Ivar shows up in England then Ivar disappears and Ivar comes back but based on what little we know about Eva's brothers and father it's difficult to make them all match up since that would mean Eva's father would have to be Ragnar Lodbrok who doesn't seem to have any Irish connections several generations later in a junior branch of the family we come across godred crow van from which we get the crow van dynasty crow van lived around the time of William the Conqueror and in fact he's believed to have fought alongside Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge he survived the armies defeat and fled to the Isle of Man which he eventually took over and then he went and conquered Dublin as well the actual territory in the kingdom of the Isles varied over time but it was roughly all these little islands from the Hebrides to man now we don't have all the exact dates for these Kings just estimates for their deaths so in 1095 godred crow van died and there was a power struggle between his sons from which olaf emerged victorious but after his death the disputes continued between these two brothers-in-law on this side there was godred who took over from his father and on this side was Summerland who was the ruler of Argyll and is famous for leading a rebellion against the Scottish King Malcolm the fourth summer led had married Olaf's daughter and took the title king of the Isles for himself when he conquered about half the kingdom after these two things get complicated and it's really difficult to say if there even is a real king of the Isles anymore but conveniently everything ends up back together but as part of Scotland on godred side the king of norway magnus olufsen takes over but following some skirmishes after his death the islands were ceded to Scotland and over on summer led side their Isles stayed within the family known as clans sorely but when they refused to sell their lands to Scotland Scotland invaded and took it for itself clan sorely then divided into three different families the MacDougall's the McDonald's and the McCrory's each named after the man at the top of that clans line if you're waiting for me to try to say any of these names it turns out they sound an awful lot like English it's just the spelling that's nearly impossible to figure out mcDonald's are all named after Donal but not much is known about him a handful of contemporary sources seemed to allude to him but we're really only sure he exists because the clan is named after him moving on down the family splits off again with the McAlister branch but this side keeps the name MacDonald rather than changing again to MEK Angus now there's no more kingdom of the Isles to rule but starting with Angus the MacDonald's are granted the title Lord of Eila which is this little island here and again we have more branches splitting off if you know your personal genealogy and happen to be related you might be able to see where your branch connects to the main tree there are the Arden American McDonald's named after the peninsula where they had their castle and the McDonald's of Glencoe known as Clan Ian abre but Glencoe turned out to be a pretty hostile place for them and things were only made worse after the Glorious Revolution the McDonald's of Glencoe were supporters of the Stuart royal family and clan Campbell who supported William and Mary led a massacre against the McDonald's for being too slow to pledge their allegiance to the new monarchs continuing along the main branch we come next to John of Eila you can see a romanticized Victorian image of him here he was promoted from Lord of Eila to Lord of the Isles which was a lot like being king of the Isles just under Scotland he was married first to a member of Clan McCrory which had died out in the male line but still had female descendants from that first marriage came the clan Ronald branch also known as Clan Ronald as well as the Glengarry branch his second marriage however dramatically changed the future of the McDonald family he married Princess Margaret whose father was King Robert the second they had several children among them Alastair who fathered the kept up branch and John Moore who fathered several branches collectively known as the South MacDonald's while the main branch continued as the North MacDonald's and yes although Donald was younger than these children here he was his father's primary air because of his mother's much higher status Donald Avila went on to marry the daughter of the ruling Countess of Ross who was equivalent to an earl there was just no female form of the word and so his son eventually inherits the title Earl of Ross this is clan MacDonald's High Point with Donald and Alexander and John the second John the second was even able to get away with a rivalry against King James ii of scotland but then he signed a treaty with England saying that if Scotland were ever conquered he and another Noble would split the land in the north while England would take the south King James the third took this as a sign of usurpation and summoned John to trial when John didn't show up things came to direct conflict and John lost he had a son that tried to stir up a revolt again but he too was defeated and so the senior line passed through John's illegitimate brother Hugh who began the slate branch so-called because he was Lord of slate and did not inherit his father's titles after nine generations the slate MacDonald's were promoted to the baronet's of slate during the life of Donald MacDonald but curiously he didn't hold a Scottish royal title despite ruling in Scotland he was a member of the peerage of Nova Scotia or New Scotland six baronet Slater and Alexander MacDonald is promoted to a baron but again they're not part of the peerage of Scotland but instead the peerage of Ireland go figure there's this coat of arms next to him because it's unclear when exactly this modern form was adopted but this point in time is a reasonable guess as it seems like just the occasion when a new coat of arms would be needed and today the current head of clan MacDonald is the 8th Baron of slate Godfrey MacDonald he succeeded his father in 1970 and has a son who is expected to succeed him and that concludes clan MacDonald a very expansive family with some very very old roots hopefully this has given you a taste for the history of Scotland Ireland and the Isles and maybe even helped a few of you with your own family trees thanks for watch [Music] [Music] you [Music]

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Id: Z5pW5k61enA

Length: 9min 39sec (579 seconds)

Published: Fri May 15 2020