Dear Cousins I thought you might be interested in the following exchanges in the Sinclair Discussion Group. Yours aye Iain Laird Date: 7 Sep 1999 08:44:42 -0700 From: "Spirit One Email" <laurel@spiritone.com> Subject: Laird Cousins, Maybe I should think about this longer before I show my ignorance, but if I am wondering perhaps others are also. The word "Laird" confuses me. It seems to be a clan name ....but then sometimes it is a title..There was a Mistress Pauline Hunter of Hunterston, Chief of Clan Hunter, 30th Laird of Hunterston at the Pleasanton Games. I assume that there is no title comparable to Earl for a woman so she is called a "Mistress"? My two dictionaries say this is a Scottish noun for the owner of a landed estate. a variant of Lord. But in the recent messages about the Sinclair-Lairds it becomes a family name? I see no clan named Laird. Who can explain this? Laurel Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 17:47:16 +0100 From: "Privateers" <Privateers@privateers.org> Subject: Re: Laird Dear Laurel The Scots word 'laird is a shortened form of 'layerd , an older Scots word deriving from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning lord. It implied ownership of landed property in the form of an estate. By the 15th cent, it was widely used of lesser landowners holding directly of the crown and therefore entitled to go to Parliament, but lairds were clearly distinguished from the higher aristocracy or lords of Parliament. In the 16th and 17th cents, it was commonly applied to the chief of a Highland clan with no ther title, as in 'the laird of McGregor . The feuing movement which peaked at the time of the 16th cent Reformation enabled tenants to buy for a steep price feu charters which apart from a small ongoing feu duty bestowed virtual ownership. Some of these tenants, really small proprietors, were known as 'bonnet lairds , but the term is jocular, and it is best to equate the rank of laird with the possession of a barony held either of the crown or of a great lord of regality such as *Argyll, who had the right to create his own baronage. Lairds were therefore a numerous class in rural Scotland, though decreasing relative to the higher nobility over time. Baronial jurisdiction was extensive, though subject to appeal to the royal sheriff court or the regality court. The lairdly particle was the lord 'of , as in 'Irvine of Drum or 'Ferguson of Kilkerran . The number of lairds is difficult to state before the 18th cent., but allowing for the large number of baronies directly in crown or noble hands, equating the laird class with all others, and remembering that in a Fife parish such as Creich there were at one stage three baronies, a figure in the lowish thousands seems the maximum. They were not a homogeneous class: Orkney and Shetland produced merchant-lairds. When great landlords, defined as those with a rental over £2,000 Scots (£166 135. 4d.sterling), already held by 1770 half the agrarian wealth of Scotland and were consolidating their ascendancy, businessmen were buying into the laird class around the larger cities. As baronies survived after 1747, it is still possible to buy laird status with an estate which is a barony regards, Sinclair Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 10:47:30 -0700 From: Myra Perala <mperala@teleport.com> Subject: Re: Laird or Leard Another Question re 'Laird' My sister-in-law's maiden name is Leard, and she insists the other spelling is not from her heritate. How about it" Myra Subj: Who are the Lairds? Date: 08/09/99 To: <A HREF="mailto:sinclair@mids.org">sinclair@mids.org</A> CC: <A HREF="mailto:LAIRD-L@Rootsweb.com">LAIRD-L@Rootsweb.com</A> In response to Laurel's enquiry and Sinclair's reply, apart from "laird" being an occupational description we of the surname Laird are very much a family of the same name, and in Caithness, as most of the families, including the Sinclairs, of Norse origin. In investigating our ancestry, we have yet to identify a Laird who was a laird (in the landed sense). We have recently identified one real laird (landed), William Laird of Glenhuntly in 1777, and are looking for more information about him. A variation of his Arms has also been found matriculated by a Laird in England. For the moment it is speculation that our original Norse name may have adapted to spelling in the same way as the Scottish "lord" or "landowner". In Western Norway, our point of origin, I have found old farm names beginning with "Leir", e.g. Leirvik, Leirdal and Leired. The Norwegian adjective "laerd" means scholarly,erudite, learned! On the other hand "leirdue" is a clay pigeon! There is a town and county in Sogn called Laerdal. In the south of Scotland we see the surname appear when one Roger Lawird of Berwick made an agreement with the Abbey of Kelso relating to his land of Waldefgat in 1257.Thomas le Lanerd of Peebleshire rendered homage in 1296. Laird sometimes appears in Orkney and Caithness as Leard and Leird. I am investigating the origins of the surname in Caithness, where Church records start around 1650. I have entered some of my findings in my webpage "http://ourworld.cs.com/inslaird". There is a thriving Laird Family Association in the USA with a webpage "http://www.qcsi.net/lfa/" but the Laird family is not a clan in the traditional sense, and so my family is proud, with the Earl's permission, to wear the Sinclair Tartans and the Badge of Sinclair. I believe the Lairds are a "mislaid" sept of Sinclair, as Caithness families by the name of Budge, Clyne, Lyall, Linklater and Mason are also considered to be Sinclairs. 100 years ago there were many of the surname Laird in Caithness and now there are but one or two. In the Norse tradition of our forbears, we continue to wander the world. Yours aye Iain Laird