Where Do I Come From?

[Packhound]

Okay,

I desire to wear a tartan that represents my family roots. However, what I know of my family tree is sooo deeply rooted in American soil that I have to go back to the early and mid-seventeen century before it crosses back over the Atlantic.

My surname is Sutton, my mother is a Hicks. Grandmothers and great-grandmothers are Ring, Yow, Reavis (don't expect an answer on that one. Seems to be thoroughly researched and ends in Jamestown, VA.), and Price (could this be Welsh?). One grandmother had a step-father who was a McCormick.

Does anyone recognize any of these surnames as celtic (other than the obvious McCormick)?

[creativeaccents]

REAVIS:SAXON

http://www.houseofnames.com/coatofar...?sId=&s=Reavis

[slohairt]

PRICE: Anglicised from the Welsh, Ap Rhŷs, meaning son of Rhŷs.

[slohairt]

Ring can sometimes be an Anglicisation of the Irish Ó Rinn (pronounced OH RIN) meaning descended from Reann, a personal name meaning star. They were mainly located in Co. Cork.

[slohairt]

McCormick is, as you probably already know, an Anglicisation of either the Irish or Scottish Gaelic Mac Cormaic, meaning son of Cormac. Cormac is a personal name meaning charioteer.

The various Anglicisations and the original form are, unfortunately, no help as to determining which of the two it is.

[gilmore]

Surname profiler http://www.spatial-literacy.org shows Ring as a name of English origin, with most of its bearers far in the south of England. There is no "Yow," but Yowell is shown in the Home Counties, around London. Sutton is from a place name, and was from the Midlands, while Hicks was from the south of England.

[creativeaccents]

Thanks for stimulating the mind and appetite to know more. I moved today beyond my own name "Walker" to a couple of generations and was reminded of Bailie, Webb, Day, Huggins, Cameron and Montgomery! Some fascinating reading and interesting to find that some of them DID have their own ancient tartans. Bottom line, don't just stop with one or two generations. Now to find wher the name Greene slipped in, traditionally the middle name of every male predecessor from my grandfather on back to the 1700s.

[Mr. MacDougall]

I've started to write a response to this three times, and each time, I've not posted it, and gone away from this thread.

I sympathise with your desire to know more about your ancestors. But I'm somewhat uncomfortable with a subtext that I'm reading, which may not be intended. The subtext is this: that being American is somehow inferior to being Celtic.

My family has been in America for a long time. My earliest ancestor arrived here somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand years ago, while the latest arrived more than a century ago. In other words, in the living memory of my family, the only nation we've known is America. For me, this is not a disconnection from my roots -- it is my roots! When I think of who I am, and where I came from, my answers tend to center around Tucson and Arizona.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

[macwilkin]

I've started to write a response to this three times, and each time, I've not posted it, and gone away from this thread.

I sympathise with your desire to know more about your ancestors. But I'm somewhat uncomfortable with a subtext that I'm reading, which may not be intended. The subtext is this: that being American is somehow inferior to being Celtic.

My family has been in America for a long time. My earliest ancestor arrived here somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand years ago, while the latest arrived more than a century ago. In other words, in the living memory of my family, the only nation we've known is America. For me, this is not a disconnection from my roots -- it is my roots! When I think of who I am, and where I came from, my answers tend to center around Tucson and Arizona.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And I think you're reading too much into this gentleman's post.

Regards,

Todd

[slohairt]

I almost forgot. Hicks is an Anglo-Saxon diminutive of Richard. The terminal "s" makes it a patronymic.

Apparently the Anglo-Saxons had difficulty pronouncing the Norman alveolar (trilled) "r". Thus, we have Hick or Dick (Rick), Hob or Bob (Rob), Hodge (Roger). In Scotland, however, there has never been difficulty in rolling an "r", so these names are never indigenous to Scotland.