This is a small clip from the ~"MacKintosh Families of GlenShee and GlenIsla"by Alexander MacKintosh MacKintosh,The Heritage Nairn, Sept. 1916. p.1. The name Mackintosh is usually associated with the leading tribe of the Clan Chattan, which in the main is an Inverness-shire clan; but no doubt there have been and are many bearing the name without any connection either with Inverness-shire or with Clan Chattan. The word "toiseach" equivalent to the charter words " thane," "chamberlain," "seneschal," though primarily meaning a chief or leader, at an early period became attached to the person holding the position of steward or representative of the king or other high authority in a Gaelic-speaking district, probably because such person, in addition to being the collector of rents and the general administrator of the lands under his charge, would be responsible for mobilising and leading the men living on the lands in the event of their being called upon to fight. Thus wherever a toiseach or thane ruled there was always the possibility of his founding a family with the designation of Mac-an-toisich or Mackintosh, and having regard to the number of thanages known to have existed in early times it is somewhat surprising that such families are not more numerous than they are. Cosmo Innes, in his Scotch Legal Antiquities (pp. 80-3), gives two instances of families, in Glentilt and Lochaber respectively, who took their surnames from the office, but neither of whom, as he correctly says, had any connection with the Mackintoshes of Clan Chattan. Skene, in Celtic Scotland (iii. 358), mentions. -J.McComb-S.California-Researching Clan MacKintosh and Clan Chattan-