Perhaps he found it more >advantageous to be Anglo-Saxon i.e., British. His family may have dropped >the Mc some generations before. OR his name is not a derivative of McCann >at all. The story my grandfather gave me was that our surname was McCann "way back when," and part of the clan dropped the "Mc" as a result of a feud and left, eventually finding their way to North America (Nova Scotia initially, which means "New Scotland"). Since getting into genealogy, I have 1,300 Canns in my data going back to 1565, and a lot of what my grandfather had told me is now coming out as true, but not the McCann surname. I sure hate to see all of you folks going to all this trouble on my account, but it would sure be interesting if I could prove the connection. I am List Admin for the Cann list and board on RootsWeb, and we have gone through this there too, but never got anywhere with it. If the Cann/McCann connection is there, it is sure well hidden :-) David Cann [email protected] *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 06/17/2002, at 11:06 PM, Big River wrote: >Hi Jane and David, > >Its hard to be sure how Cann fits in. With names that had O's as a prefix, >it fequently was deleted or added. This has not been my experience with >Mccanns however. There are mny variations. But i usually see a M', Mc, or >Mac or MACAN. Accrding to my sources the switch from Cana to McCan/Macan >seems to have occurred before David's Canns appeared. He is citing a Sir >Thomas Cann in the 1500's in England. If I were to theorize, I would >assume that the Mc had been dropped. > >I base that on stereotyping, to some degree. It is generally held that the >McCanns originated on the banks of Lough Neagh in what is now county Armagh >and east Tyrone. Some certainly migrated to Scotland, as we now know it. >Many of those who stayed in Ulster identified strongly wiht their Celtic >heritage. Since he was a Sir in the mid 1500's it seems unlikely that he >identified with his Celtic background. If he or his family had been a >McCann, he was a descendant of Celts. Perhaps he found it more >advantageous to be Anglo-Saxon i.e., British. His family may have dropped >the Mc some generations before. OR his name is not a derivative of McCann >at all. > >I don't want to inflame controversy with these opinions. I only offer this >theory as requested. > <clip>