There is a range of opinions as to what does and does not constitute a clan, starting with those that refuse to consider any non-Gaelic speaking kin group from outside of the highlands as a clan to those that firmly believe that any Scottish name belongs to a clan either directly or as a sept.
Before we launch into our own analysis, we will discuss some of the terminology.
The word "clan" comes from Gaelic and literally translates to "children of". Although it can also be used to refer to a wider kin group, the implication of the direct translation is that all members of a clan descend from a common ancestor.
The word "sept" is derived from Latin and is commonly used to refer to families associated with a more powerful clan. There was an explosion in the number of septs around the early 19th Century as the craze for all things highland, and especially all things tartan took off! There were three main ways that a family became a sept of another:
It is important that we understand that nowadays we use both terms - "clan" and "sept" - in an English-speaking context to refer to relationships that were historically covered by a variety of different Gaelic terms that would have provided far more subtlety than the black-or-white English terms.
Although the term "clan" may well have been used historically, it would have had several different meanings depending upon the context, and would have been interchanged with other words depending upon the nature of the family group being discussed.
We feel it unlikely that the term "sept" would have been used widely during the heyday of the highland clans. Instead, a range of Gaelic terms would have been used with more nuanced meaning. Two of the more common terms would have been sliocht and siol, both of which can be literally translated to mean "progeny" or "seed", but which would have provided more specific information on the nature of relationships than the catch-all "sept".
In an historic context, a clan was generally a family grouping that followed a central figure, who was recognised as the chief of the clan. As a clan grew in status and power, it would increase in number and increase its territory. Many clan members initially would be descended from a common ancestor, but as a clan grew it would take in other family groups, either by marriage or as people living in its territory swore fealty, sometimes changing their family name to that of the clan.
Clan members would be expected to act for the good of the clan, and would be expected to answer the clan chief's call to war in times of strife. The clan members, and certainly those outside of the immediate family of the chief, would also be expected to support the clan financially through the payment of a tack on the lands that they occupied.
A kin group can only declare itself to be officially a clan if it is recognised as such by The Court of The Lord Lyon. The Court has two statuses when it comes to clans:
All other kin groups, no matter how Scottish their names, are not clans (which was behind the mad, 19th-Century rush to label these kin groups as septs of the existing clans - more on this below).
Going by the above description, it is clear that nothing like the historic clan system exists in Scotland, or anywhere else in the UK, today. Although clan chiefs still exist, modern "clans" are now generally community groups pulling together people with common or related surnames from across the world, often galvanised by official (or otherwise) societies run by people with no immediate family links to past or present chiefs (like this one!).
The clans have adapted themselves well to modern times, and many of the clan societies can claim memberships into the thousands. Although the days are long gone when a clan chief could call everybody of his name into battle, the clan societies are still able to pull together good numbers for clan gatherings and highland games. As the societies have expanded over the globe, they have taken the craze for the highlands and tartan wear with them, in quite possibly the most instantly recognisable sign of kinship that has ever existed. At the same time, there has been an explosion of interest in family history research, with many thousands of people taking a passionate interest in the stories of their own origins.
Yes, the old clan system is dead, but long live the new one, we say!
This is an area that ignities passionate, emotionally-driven debate. On one side of the argument are the purists, who will uncomprimisingly argue that a kin group cannot be a clan unless they originate from a Gaelic-speaking area of the Scottish highlands and have a suitable pedigree. On the other are those who have not had a Scotland-born ancestor for hundreds of years but claim devoted membership of a clan purely because their surname appears on the website of a vendor of tartan cushion covers.
We like to approach the issue with an open mind, especially in view of the significant evolution in what it means to be a clan that has occured over the centuries and will no doubt continue.
What we do know is that the only Watson chiefs that we have ever found evidence for were from the area of Edinburgh, which is firmly located in the lowlands. Ignoring the fact that many of the highland chiefs spent increasing amounts of time in Edinburgh and London from the 17th Century onwards1, the Watsons were almost certainly never a clan in a militaristic highland context. Although the Watsons of Saughton were clearly a local aristocratic family, we do see potential evidence that they were expanding their political and trading powerbase across Scotland, down into England and out to the colonies as the British Empire expanded. We also have reports of the Watsons being active in the border regions2, and potentially being involved in reiving3, and we know that many of the major reiving families looked and behaved very much like the highland clans despite them being based in lowland areas.
Whilst we are still working on establishing the exact extent of influence of the Watsons of Saughton and the nature and number of relationships that they had with other kin groups, we do see that they were clearly a reasonably powerful family for many centuries. We also know that they were formally recognised as a clan by The Court of the Lord Lyon.
We can therefore state with some confidence that the Watsons were a well-established kin group with a recognised chief who established a political and trading network covering key locations in what is now the United Kingdom.
As to whether they were a "proper" clan or not, everyone will have their own opinion on this one - come and join us on the Clan Watson Facebook group and tell us yours!
1 Run an internet search for "statutes of Iona" for more details on why the clan chiefs started to frequent the lowlands.
2 "The border regions" refers to the areas of land on both sides of the Scottish/English border. They were historically divided into three areas on each side of the border - the West, Middle and East Marches. Nowadays, they are generally referred to as "the Scottish Borders", or just "the Borders" for short.
3 The term "reiver" refers to someone who raids another person's territory with the aim of stealing their possessions. In the context of the border regions, reiving was an organised activity that generally involved the stealing of a rival kin group's cattle, and was used as a means to display dominance.
