Mackenzie surname

British Surnames derives Mackenzie from the Gaelic MacCoinnich, son of Coinneach, and notes that the meaning of Coinneach is glossed in more than one way.

Evidence level D. Sources: [10]

Wikipedia's surname article gives the Gaelic form as Mac Coinnich, glosses Coinneach as comely or handsome, and says Kenneth is the usual anglicisation although it first rendered a different Gaelic name, Cionaodh.

Evidence level D. Sources: [11]

Wikipedia says the z in Mackenzie represents the Middle Scots letter yogh, as in the older spelling MacKenzie written with a yogh, and that Menzies was altered in the same way.

Evidence level D. Sources: [11]

Wikipedia's article on yogh says yogh became confused with a cursive z in Middle Scots and that early printers often used z when their fonts lacked yogh. It gives the older pronunciation of MacKenzie as "makenyie", of Menzies as "mingis", of Dalziel as "deeyel" and of Culzean as "culain".

Evidence level D. Sources: [12]

The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs says everyone who shares the chief's surname is deemed a member of the clan, that sharing a surname creates a presumption and not a guarantee, and that each chief decides which families the clan accepts.

Evidence level B. Sources: [2]

Wikipedia's article on Scottish Gaelic personal names says Mac and Mc are the same prefix spelled two ways and that patronymics are built on mac, "son", so McKenzie and Mackenzie are one surname in origin.

Evidence level D. Sources: [13]

Wikipedia reports that tradition derives the Mackenzie chiefs from Gilleoin of the Aird, an early twelfth-century Gaelic dynast, that the Mathesons and Anrias are believed to share that ancestry, and that an alternative theory names a thirteenth-century Kermac Macmaghan.

Evidence level D. Sources: [5]

Wikipedia reports that early clan histories by John Mackenzie of Applecross and George Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Cromartie, claimed a Fitzgerald ancestor, that this goes back to a single lost manuscript made by William MacQueen, parson of Assynt, in 1576, and that Alexander Mackenzie gave the theory up in his 1894 edition.

Evidence level D. Sources: [5]

The Clan Mackenzie Society gives a grant of Kintail to Colin Fitzgerald in 1263, after the Battle of Largs, as traditional and calls Kintail the Mackenzies' "Giftland".

Evidence level C. Sources: [7]

The Clan Mackenzie Society calls Alexander the Upright, in the fifteenth century, the first Mackenzie chief in the true sense, and quotes the historian Alexander Mackenzie that before him "the line of Kintail is but a narrow thread".

Evidence level C. Sources: [1]

Wikipedia calls Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail (before 1436 to after 1471) the first chief for whom indisputable contemporary documentary evidence survives: a papal dispensation of 13 September 1465, a further dispensation in 1466 and a charter witnessed at Dingwall in 1471. It says two charters of 1463 and 1477 cited for him were questioned because they appear only in inventories, and that clan histories before the seventeenth century are often unreliable.

Evidence level D. Sources: [14][5]

Wikipedia says Kenneth Mackenzie, 8th of Kintail, was killed by the Laird of Buchanan, left no legitimate issue and was succeeded by a half-brother, John. It adds that Kenneth appears never to have been served heir and that there is doubt over his very existence.

Evidence level D. Sources: [6]

A digitised page held by the National Library of Scotland, from a work it does not name, quotes a charter of David II in 1362 to "Murdo filio Kennethi de Kintail" and one of 1380 to his son Murdoch Nidroit. The charters themselves were not seen.

Evidence level E. Sources: [15]

Stirnet's genealogy gives Kenneth (Coinneach) of Kintail as dying in 1304 and Murdoch Dubh as dying in 1375, says the numbering of the early chiefs varies between writers, and states that an Irish Geraldine descent is unsupported by evidence.

Evidence level D. Sources: [16]

The Clan Mackenzie Society says Murdoch Riach's descendants, the Clan Vurchie, began as a separate group, fought against Alexander the Upright, and by the seventeenth century called themselves Mackenzie and not MhicVurchie. It says the Gairloch Mackenzies also disputed the leadership of the Kintail line.

Evidence level C. Sources: [1]

The Clan Mackenzie Society says Gairloch came to the family in the fifteenth century through Hector Roy Mackenzie, Coigach through the marriage of Dame Margaret MacLeod to Roderick Mackenzie, Tutor of Kintail, and Lewis around 1597 when Torquil Cononach gave up his claim. The Earl of Seaforth took his title from Loch Sithphort on Lewis in 1623.

Evidence level C. Sources: [7]

Wikipedia reports that the earldom of Seaforth was created on 3 December 1623 and that William, 5th Earl, was declared forfeit on 7 May 1716. Francis Humberston Mackenzie became Baron Seaforth in 1797 and died in 1815 without surviving sons.

Evidence level D. Sources: [17]

Wikipedia reports that the earldom of Cromartie was created in 1703 for Sir George Mackenzie, was forfeited after the Jacobite rising of 1745, and was recreated on 21 October 1861 for the Duchess of Sutherland, passing by special remainder. The 5th Earl has held it since 1989.

Evidence level D. Sources: [18]

The Clan Mackenzie Society says the chiefship was effectively dormant after the death of James Fowler Mackenzie in 1907 and that the Lord Lyon recognised the Earl of Cromartie as chief on 12 June 1980. It adds that Sir Walter Scott wrote of the Kintail line ending when Lord Seaforth died in 1815. The Lyon Court record itself was not seen.

Evidence level C. Sources: [1]

The Clan Mackenzie Society and the Highland Historic Environment Record both name Castle Leod as the seat of the Earl of Cromartie, the present chief.

Evidence level C. Sources: [19][20]

The Clan Mackenzie Society's list of related surnames has more than forty names, among them Kenneth, Kennethson, Kynoch, Murchison, MacIver, MacKinney and MacKinnie. It says these "do not represent separate and definable sub-clans" and records Mackenzie itself as spelled with Mac, Mc or M' and as Macenzie, Kenzie or MacKinzie. MacKinnon is not on the list.

Evidence level C. Sources: [4]

Wikipedia derives MacKinnon from the Gaelic Mac Fhionghuin, "fair born" or "fair son", or alternatively from Mac Ionmhuinn, and places that clan on Skye and Mull. The article does not link it to Mackenzie, so the two names have different Gaelic roots and share only some letters in English.

Evidence level D. Sources: [21]

Wikipedia says the Seaforth Highlanders were formed in 1881 from the 72nd (Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders) and the 78th (Ross-shire Buffs), both raised by members of the Mackenzie family. The 78th earned the honours Assaye (1803) and Maida (1806), the regiment's full title was approved on 22 November 1881, and its first battalion merged into the Queen's Own Highlanders on 7 February 1961. The Clan Mackenzie article and the Seaforth article differ on which Mackenzie raised which regiment and in which year.

Evidence level D. Sources: [9][5]

The Clan Mackenzie Society says Sir Hector Mackenzie of Gairloch and his sons refused to evict a single tenant during the Clearances, and that in 1852 to 1853 the women of Coigach disarmed officers and burned eviction summonses. These are the society's statements, and tenants who left other Mackenzie estates are not covered by them.

Evidence level C. Sources: [7]

Wikipedia dates the Highland Clearances mostly to two phases between 1750 and 1860, notes that historians dispute what the term covers, and lists Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, Glengarry in Ontario and the Carolinas among Gaelic emigrant settlements. It says the kelp trade collapsed by 1820, which removed seasonal work for tens of thousands of crofters.

Evidence level D. Sources: [22]

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography says Sir Alexander Mackenzie was born in 1764 at Stornoway on Lewis, son of Kenneth Mackenzie and Isabella Maciver, and in 1774 travelled to New York with his father because of economic depression on Lewis. He entered the fur trade in 1779 and was knighted on 10 February 1802, and the river he followed to the Arctic now bears his name.

Evidence level B. Sources: [23]

Wikipedia gives 3 July 1789 as the day Alexander Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan for the river that now bears his name, and 20 July 1793 as the day he reached the Pacific at Bella Coola. It says he died on 12 March 1820 and was buried at Avoch.

Evidence level D. Sources: [24]

Forebears counts about 101,080 people named MacKenzie: 21,393 in Canada, 20,345 in the United States, 15,242 in Scotland, 13,653 in England and 12,513 in Australia. Scotland has the highest density, 1 in 351. Its separate McKenzie figure is about 138,502, led by the United States (77,734), Australia (27,305), Canada (15,930), England (15,733) and Jamaica (14,429), with the Bahamas the densest at 1 in 175. The site does not state its method, so these are rough comparisons.

Evidence level D. Sources: [25][26]

Wikipedia says Mackenzie is used as a given name, more often for girls than boys in North America, and credits the 1975 television series One Day at a Time and the actress Mackenzie Phillips with raising it from obscurity as a girls' name. It gives no popularity figures.

Evidence level D. Sources: [27]

ScotlandsPeople says registration of births, deaths and marriages became compulsory in Scotland on 1 January 1855. Old Parish Registers run from 1553 but are incomplete and thin, census returns are available for 1841 to 1921, and valuation rolls exist for the mid-point between censuses from 1855 to 1905 and every five years from 1915 to 1940. It warns that records before 1855 show more spelling variations and difficult handwriting.

Evidence level B. Sources: [28]

George F. Black's The Surnames of Scotland (1946) is held by the Internet Archive as a lending copy. Its Mackenzie entry could not be read for this page, so it is named only as a reference to check, not as a source for any claim here.

Evidence level C. Sources: [29]