Dear List:

Because I'm a Digest subscriber, I'm going to try to respond at once
to a number of folks who picked up on my initial note.

1.  Is a given surname Irish?

The following website gives you a quick way of identifying potential
Irish surnames.  Keep in mind that the site identifies names in
Ireland -- you must consult the actual description to see whether it
fits in as Gaelic Irish, Anglo-Norman [also sometimes called "Old
English"], English, or (in a number of cases) Scots in origin:

http://scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm

2.  For Pat in Montana - what about those Lafflins?

I went ahead and ran the above website for you -- it didn't find
anyone spelled that particular way.  However, both Laughlin and
MacLaughlin are definite Irish names (indeed I have a McLaughlin line
on my mother's side).  Although my particular line pronounced the
"gh" like a "k" -- it also seems pretty common for it to be
pronounced like "f ," which would meet your phonetics.

3. For Kathryn Holland - Tarralls, and where the heck is Lancaster
County?

Dear K., you don't give us dates for the West Indies detour, the
dates are pretty important for trying to pick up pre-1700 patterns.
Also, since you seem to be one of the rare ones who can actually nail
down a West Indies connection, can we prevail on you to describe the
resources that paid off.

Sorry about Lancaster County, but it's a little difficult to name a
prominent city.  How about Kilmarnock?  After all, this is a place
where the county seat, including the requisite Confederate memorial
with my 2G Grandfather's name on it,  is still called just "Lancaster
Court House."  But I can't resist commenting on your note that you
are "definitely an east coast Virginian."  Accomack aside, you can't
get much more "east coast" in Northern Virginia than Lancaster County!

4.  For Jeff Duval - where's the beef in 1679 Barbados and Kings of
Leinster?

I hear you.  I have a "Fallan" who was being held in Montserrat in
1640 for being a part of a conspiracy that the 2nd Duke of Carlisle
(who owned the West Indies at the time) was willing to see
"repayred," a few other references on Barbados, some coming after two
separate sets of Fallins (mine in Northumberland Co. VA before 1670
and another set that we've never been able to connect in across the
Bay in Dorchester, MD about 20 years later) had already arrived and
that's about it.  Hence my desire to see if we can find any common
threads.

However, I wouldn't throw out the King of Leinster story; well into
the 1700s the old Gaelic families in Ireland tended to stay in pretty
closely defined areas.  Although I see a lot of discussion to the
effect that "O'" in Irish names is a reference to grandfather
(parallel with the actual use of Mc and Mac to refer to a person's
father), it's my understanding that the "O'" [Ua] in Gaelic was much
more general and referred, not to any given individual, but to the
whole interrelated clan.  So it's perfectly possible that you have a
reasonable claim to relationship to an old King of one of Ireland's
original provinces -- but it wouldn't depend on the particular way
your family happened to get here and would be generally equal to
similar claims by every other Cavanaugh/Kavanaugh around the world.
The notion of individual hereditary office did eventually creep in to
the picture -- but it was just another form of Anglicization and the
end game there was the elimination of all the old Gaelic nobility.

Jack Fallin
Walnut Creek, CA



To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html