There is some dispute as to the actual clan we belong to, but several sources indicate we are a sept of Clan MacQuarrie of Ulva. Here's an outline of the situation from Herm McCreary <herm@accnorwalk.com>:
Tragically like all of us I didn't write things down that were told to me so long ago, and now that I want to know I have to try to remember. My father was born in Illinois about 1898. His name was Raymond Israel McCreary, and his fathers name was Walter, who married an Echleburger (?) and they were from the Litiz PA area. I have argued with the Grand Patrons of the Ohio Scottish games and they are positive we are related to the MacDonald Clan.
In 1968 Marjorie McCreary, a retired School teacher from Cleveland OH did an extensive book almost two inches thick on our history. She dates all of us to PA about 1740 and a John MacCreary who came from Scotland or northern Ireland. She also implies that we are of the MacQuarrie Clan, as she says our history is steeped in the mists of Ulva.
I did a little research on the net, and I can see the confusion over our clan membership. I didn't find our name anywhere, but I did find the name `MacCrierie', which is a sept of Clan McDonald of the Isles. This name bears a superficial resemblance to our name if you attempt to guess the proper pronunciation of our name based on an English-language interpretation of its spelling. This is a very poor method of onomastic analysis, and so it can only be considered a weak argument for establishing clan membership.
I do have some colloquial evidence that better supports our membership in the MacQuarrie clan. The septs of MacQuarrie are all variations on the original name, and so our name must be similar to `McQuarrie' to qualify. Significantly, `McQueary' is a recognized sept of Clan MacQuarrie, as well as `Wharrie' and `MacCorry', and so a fairly wide range of names are recognized as variations of `MacQuarrie'.
If you accept the spelling of `McCreary' as a Gaelic one, rather than an English one, then you can make the following argument: My first name is supposed to have an accent on the `á' (a fada), which means the vowel is pronounced `aw'. With the `se' pronounced as `sh', this gives you the correct pronunciation `shawn'. Our name has the same vowel pattern, and if you apply a fada to the `a' you get `McCrawry'. Combine that with my grandmother's pronunciation, and you get `McWawry' which is even closer to `McQuarrie', and not at all like `McCrierie'. This isn't the most concrete chain of reasoning, but I think it is good enough to rule out the `MacCrierie' hypothesis.
Jennifer Rowe <jsrowe@u.washington.edu> also says:
My maternal grandmother went to Scotland in 1962 and visited the island of Ulva off the island of Mull (I think those are correct names) where the McCrearys are supposed to originate from.
This seems to indicate her grandmother was convinced we are a sept of MacQuarrie as well. However, this is not the only point of view. Donald J. McCreery <mccrery@aol.com> writes:
My name is spelled McCreery instead of with an "a" but according to Marjorie McCreary and other sources we are tied together. I have read the theory that we are from the MacQuarrie Clan and have not found this to be the case. My family is Scotch-Irish which means we were from Scotland and went to Northern Ireland or Ulster around 1600. We than came to America in the 18th century. The subject of where the family comes from in Scotland has been an interest of mine for a while. What I have found out is the family is from an area of Scotland known as Galloway in southwestern Scotland. In Scotland the name was spelled McCrery there was no additional "e" or "a" in the spelling. The family owned a barony in Scotland known as the barony of Rerrick. The family was said to be founded by a man named de Carrick and when he was given the barony at Rerrick took the name of de Rerik. In Galloway it was a custom to replace the "de" in front of a name with an "Mc". Because of this custom the name of the family became McRerik. The "c" from the Mc was transfered over to the Rerik part of the name and the name became McCrerik. One branch of the family change the name or styled it with an "ie" at the end instead of an "ik". The name became McCrerie and than was changed to McCrery. In Scotland there were different branches to this famiy. The branches are include the Reddicks, McCriricks and the McCrerys with various spelling of all three names. The branches of this family that went to Ulster in the 17th century either left the name with one "e" of else changed the name to McCreery and McCreary.
The book "The John McCreary Clan" written by Marjorie MacCreary was published although I do not know by whom. I live in the Cleveland, Ohio area where Marjorie is from. The book is at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio. This book is actually three or four volumes long. The start of the book is as you describe in your home page about the family's connection to the MacQuarrie Clan and than moves on to talk about the Scotch-Irish McCreary's and what this means. As far as I can remember the rest of the book contains first the history of the John McCreary family and than goes on to talk about other families with the family name both McCreary and McCreery. Marjorie contacted other families with the name and asked for their history. I do not remember any evidence that any one family had connecting the family to Clan MacQuarrie or any other clan. I don't know how you would go about getting this book.
There is another book called "The Alexander McCreery Clan" written by William A and Laura McCreery. This book was written with the help of Marjorie MacCreary and as far as I remember the book deals mostly with just the Alexander McCreery family, with him being the first member of this family in America. Again, this book is at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio.
The information [above] was not included in either book and based on my own research of the subject. For a long time I accepted the fact that we were connected to the MacDonald Clan of the Isles, but while there is a family there with a similar name they do not appear to be connected to the family. I have no idea where the idea of our family being connected to the MacQuarrie Clan came from and although I have seen different sources that claim this it has never seen any real evidence to support this theory. The clans which the family seem to have some connect to based on what I have include the Kennedys, Crichtons, and possibly the Bruces.
Dale Chock <dch@m1.sprynet.com> also sent me this very detailed analysis of the onomastics of the McCreary name:
Being a student of Gaelic and a bookish person generally, I read your essay on the difficulty of identifying the past of the name McCreary. I thought it wouldn't be too hard to find the truth of the matter. I apologize if this response is too long, but again, I'm a student of Gaelic. [...]
As an introduction, confusion as to Gaelic onomastics has grown historically from mistaken comparisons with Scandinavian names and English names, as well as dialectal variations in names and inconsistency in spelling Gaelic names in an English manner. So that's at least four sources of confusion or error, all of which appear in the literature on the name McCreary. [see footnote]
The sources I consulted all agree that McCreary is Gaelic 'MacRuai(dh)ridh', son of Rory. (Historically, the spelling MacRuaidhriGh may be possible, altho not mentioned in my sources.) Therefore, the 'c' in 'Creary' is spurious. 'Ruairidh' rhymes with 'brewery' i.e., the word stress is on the 'u'. The acute accent mark in McCreáry is spurious, albeit Mc-Rah-ry is phonetically truer than McReery. In Gaelic spelling, both Scottish and Irish, accent marks strictly denote a long vowel; word stress is virtually always on the first syllable. (Traditionally, *dh* was pronounced, I'll skip a phonetics lecture about how. Nowadays Scottish Gaelic speakers would likely pronounce '-idh' as 'i'; in other contexts, 'dh' would be pronounced. In current Irish Gaelic spelling, the name is MacRuaidhrí, and the internal 'dh' is silent.
The name MacQuarrie has an utterly distinct Gaelic origin from MacRuairidh. According to the Electric Scotland clan and sept register, MacRori e/MacRory/MacRuer/MacRurie belongs to Clan MacDonald. Incidentally, in Gaelic t he stress in MacQuarrie is on the 'u': the Gaelic spelling is MacGuaire. The 'e' sounds like the 'a' in 'sofa'.
The very long name index in Edward Dwelly's Gaelic-English (first printing ca. 1911, in print today) dictionary gives the equivalence MacRury = MacRuairidh.
A seemingly very reliable source for name etymologies is P. Hanks and F. Hodges, A Dictionary of Surnames, 1988, Oxford University Press. p. 357: McCREERY = MacRuidhrí (from Ruaidhrí). p. 458. RORY Scots & Irish. Anglicized form of the Gaelic personal name Ruaidhrí, originally composed of Celtic elements meaning 'red' (also 'powerful, mighty') and 'rule'.
[red = ruadh; rule = approx. 'riaghail', so I wonder about riaGh- becoming riDh. Anyhow, in Gaelic spelling, suffixing -ridh to ruadh requires the insertion of the 'i', which indeed corresponds to a change in pronunciation; hence RuaIridh, which is today's Scottish Gaelic spelling. Again, Ruaidhrí is a post 1948 Irish spelling. The remark "Scots and Irish" is inaccurate because the name is Gaelic, while the term Scots strictly means Scottish dialects of English. -- Dale]
Continuing with the Hanks & Hodges entry for RORY: Variants: Rorie, Roger. Patronymics: Rorison, McRo(o)ry, McRury, McCrory, McGrory, McCreery.
The substitution of 'Roger' for 'Rory/Ruai(dh)ridh' was made over the centuries in Scotland. The meaning of 'Roger' has nothing to do with the meaning of 'Rory'. Likewise, for the meaning of 'Roderick'.
Next source: Rev. P. Woulfe, Irish Names and Surnames. A standard work likely to be found in any genealogy library. Originally published 1923. Special Revised Edition 1992, Irish Genealogical Foundation, Kansas City. p. 403. MacRUIDHRÍ. Obsolete anglicized spelling M'Rierie; modern anglicized spellings MacReery, MacCreery, MacCreary. A dialectal variant of MacRuaidhrí. [p. 403] MacRUAIDHRÍ. Obsolete anglicized spellings M'Rury, M'Roory, M'Rowry. Son of Ruaidhrí (the Norse Hrothrekr, Domesday Book Roric) anglicized Rory, Roderick, and Roger. The name of 1) a family who were anciently chiefs of Tellach [sic] Ainbhith & Muinntear Birn, in County Tyrone [Ulster] and erenaghs of Ballynascreen, in County Derry [Ulster]; 2) Scoto-Irish family of the same stock as the MacDonnells, who came over to Ireland as gallowglasses about the middle of the 14th century. [In case you ever read the Woulfe book, it uses the ancient Gaelic alphabet, in which modern letter pairs like dh, gh, ch were written with a dot above the main letter instead of an 'h' following.]
Notice the conflict between the preceding two sources as to the source language of the name. Woulfe's claim of Norse is probably wrong, but I wouldn't know.
(The Domesday book is the census that William the Conqueror had compiled a few years after his conquest of England. Of course, Norman England never included what is now southern Scotland, including Galloway, so 'Roric' could have been a migrant. I do not know the word 'erenagh'. 'Gallowglasses' were an institutional phenomenon in Ireland for centuries, Scottish Gaelic mercenaries (the Gaelic 'gallóglach' means 'young foreigner'). About mercenaries, see the book on Irish history in the Elizabethan era, "Twilight of the Lords".
Finally, C.S. Sims, The Origin and Signification of Scottish Surnames. Originally published Philadelphia, 1862. Copyright 1964 by Ch. E. Tuttle and published by Avenel Books, a division of Crown Publishers. p. 77. MacRORIE The son of Roderick [should say Rory]. The family are descended from Roderick, grandson of Somerled, Thane of Argyll. [Somerled would be a Viking. The modern Scottish Gaelic spelling is Somhairle, anglicized Sorley, which is pretty much the pronunciation.]
So, MacCreary is usually a Scottish name, but Irish is possible. The name itself probably has no Norwegian connection, but family history probably has a Norwegian connection. The Norwegians colonized almost the entire western coast of Scotland. Early in the Viking era, the far southwest coast, wrapping around to the north shore of Solway Firth, became called Gall-Gaidheil [unsure of spelling], literally, 'foreign Gaels', referring the mixed race Norwegian-Gaels. Gall-Gaidheil became Galloway. You might consult the map and picture laden Penguin Atlas of Viking History, by John H., ca. 1995. A marvelous book.
Historically, Galloway, Ulva, and territory of the MacDonalds of the Isles are widely separated places. At least two of them would not be the ancestral homeland. As for Somerled of Argyll, Argyll is in between Ulva and Galloway.
Incidentally, about 'ea' in Gaelic. You can have ea, éa, and eá, all pronounced differently. (Scottish uses èa, eà instead.) 'ea' with no accents can be stressed on either vowel, depending on the dialect. Also, Seán is Irish for John. Scottish for John is Iain.
Scotch-Irish means the mix of English speaking Scots and English from both sides of the Scottish-English border region, plus a sprinkling of Gaelic speaking Scots, who the English crown settled in Ireland 1600-1700 or so. Mostly they settled in Ulster. Many of them left for America 1700-1750; the rest were ancestors of the Afrikaners in today's Northern Ireland. See for example David Hackett Fisher's book on the colonization of the 13 colonies (ca. 1991). Around 1900, a myth arose in America that Scotch-Irish were really Irish -- a stupid story considering that they were Protestants settled in Ireland precisely to subjugate the rebellious Catholic Irish. See works on Scottish and Irish immigration to America. By the way, I'm not Catholic.
Many anglicized Gaelic names have a spurious K, C or G in them due to confusion from the preceding 'c' of the Mac prefix. On the other hand, some of those C's and G's are genuine.
Footnote: The Vikings plundered and colonized Gaelic lands from about 800-1100. The cultural influence of the Danes in Ireland, particularly upon surnames, was slight. The cultural influence of the Norwegians on the western Scottish coast was great. Occasionally, scholars falsely trace an Irish or Scottish surname to a Scandinavian origin. (Of course, several surnames *are* Norse.) Often, over time Gaelic personal names, were given an English equivalent whose etymology was different.