> From: bernardmorgan@hotmail.com > To: dna-r1b1c7@rootsweb.com > Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:15:07 +0000 > Subject: Re: [R-M222] Crinan ancestry is subject to debate > > > > > Iain, I think there may be a difference between "royal" lines in Scotland > > based on primogeniture and the derbhfine system in Ireland. I can see any > > one "royal" line dying out - but not so much a system based on cousins. > > The idea of a Scottish derbhfine system is the basis of G.A. MacGregor 2006 justification of Clann Donnachaidh's origin from the Celtic Earls of Atholl. I learn from G.A. MacGregor that in medieval Scotland there was land deemed heritable only in the male line, i.e., could not be passed by marriage, but held by derbhfine. It is through the continued ownership of Glenerochie that G.A. MacGregor makes the case for Clann Donnachaidh's origin from the Celtic Earls of Atholl > http://design15.clickstay.net/supplement/Mag2007.pdf > R1b1c7 Research and Links: Martin MacGregor discusses both primogeniture and extinction of line issues in his section about the factors that led to the writing of the Gaelic genealogies. 'Given that tanistry definitely survived into the seventeenth century among professional kindreds, it could be that in some of our earlier texts, historians were responding to their own age by seeking to elide tanistry from the record, in order to elevate primogeniture as the historical norm'. Iain