Over the Pond Stories: Kalyn's MacGregor Story

About four years ago, my academic career in Scottish history began. At the start, I was both uniquely fascinated with Scotland’s cultural history, but unaware of my possible direct link to the traditions I had been furiously reading about. Knowing I eventually wanted to pursue the study of Scotland’s history at the graduate level, I chose to volunteer with some of NYC’s Scottish organizations rather than participate in formal internships. Through societies like the New York Caledonian Club, I was able to start getting a real sense of the significance of having Scottish ancestry in the US, as well as how many of the historical practices and traditions are still honored and celebrated today, all over the world.

It was during the beginning of my work with the Caledonian Club and NYC Tartan Week that I also became more interested in genealogy. I knew I was of about half German, half UK ancestry, but wasn’t entirely sure of the specifics.

It was during a conversation with my maternal grandmother that I was actually told directly of my Scottish ancestry for the first time. As I was describing what I was learning from my volunteer work in NYC, she simply said, “well, we’re Scottish, of course”, as if I should have known already. I did know on some level, given that the town I grew up in, Shippensburg, was historically made up of Scots-Irish settlers. But, I didn’t know it was something the family was aware of. For me, it seemed important that this was something my grandmother just knew.

Soon after, I took a DNA test for ancestry.com, which captured my DNA origin story, from Europe to the US.

It turned out that grandma was right, I’m 6% Scottish, which definitely seemed like a low number. Also, my grandmother’s surname certainly didn’t sound very Scottish. In any case, because I was showing 6%, I decided to do a bit of research into my mother’s maiden name, Peters. This is when I first learned about associated names and septs, something we’re very interested in here at ScotlandShop.

What I found is that Peters is actually a common name associated with MacGregor and an officially recognized family name of the Clan Gregor Society for membership. During the beginning of the 17th century, the name MacGregor was actually banned in Scotland following a massacre of members of the Colquhoun clan by MacGregors at the Battle of Glen Fruin. Because of this, many MacGregors took different surnames, like Peters. It wasn’t until the late 18th century that the ban was officially lifted and during those almost two centuries, the MacGregor clan had split into many different names and septs.

What’s interesting is that Peters is also an associated name of Clan MacLaren. However, because I’ve actually matched DNA with a few MacGregors on ancestry.com, I’ve chosen to ally my ancestry with Clan MacGregor. I suppose I don’t know for certain if I have a connection to the MacGregor clan, but I still wear their tartan proudly.