Just to really muddy already dark waters, but also , perhaps, to send some of you in a completely different direction in "translation" raher than "spelling" I humbly offer the following "food for thought": the Irish Gaelic for the the family name 'Laird' has been known to be translated to Mac an Tiarna (teer; tear; tearr; tearre; and so on.) Thus we now have the common name Macateer, Macteer, Mactierny, and even the the dropping of the prefix Mac to become Tierney (as in Gene ?) and sundry variations. The "mac" means 'son, "an"(for this purpose means 'of' and Tiarna means landlord, which of course is the old common meaning of "the Laird" traditionally. The head scratching begins when one wonders if ANY of the original Laird settlers, especially in the N of Ireland, changed their names into the then native language (you already know the story of how some settlers became more Irish than the Irish themselves), or, if , (and I put this forward to play devil's advocate here), some of the original Tierneys, Macteers and so on, "anglicized" their names to the English (Scottish) equivalent, in order to bypass some of the Penal Laws still in force before 1829 in Ireland, under which same laws 'native' families were penalized to an extraordinary degree. Thus, it might be possible, if one were researching Lairds in Ireland, and if one were to come across an insurmountable barrier, to make a "lateral leap" and compare the first, or Christian, names if there are contemporary records of Mactirs, Tierneys (and variations). While the barrier may still remain in most cases, the search for that most elusive needle-in-the-haystack can at least be extended. If there are some strong corollaries, then one can at least proceed to the next stage of examining land titles, wills, geographical locations, townlands and so on. I realise that this suggestion may be anathema to some purists, but we all know the extent to which names were changed to become more "socially acceptable" at different periods in the histories of various cultures. Anyway, I throw this slight offering into the brew and trust that it might indeed pique someone's interest, and provide additional fodder, on which we shouldn't gag, but with which the flagging genealogical scholar might renew some strength to KEEP GOING!! Sincerely, Ken Laird ----- Original Message ----- From: <Sharon4mus@aol.com> To: <LAIRD-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 3:37 PM Subject: [LAIRD] Spellings > We have discussed all the ways the real name could be spelled. I may have > mentioned this in the past, but since we have a lot of new people on the list > it may be worth mentioning again. When searching indexes, be aware of the > kinds of mistakes the person making the index might make. For example, I have > found the name Lard indexed as Sard, Sand, Lord, Land. Horatio Nelson Lard is > in 1860 Indiana Census Index as Horation Nelson Land. > > > ==== LAIRD Mailing List ==== > Laird Resource Page: > http://resources.rootsweb.com/surnames/l/a/LAIRD/