What's in a name (really!)?

How many caves lay claim tay his tale 
The overlord of Annandale. 
Along Alba's western coast, a score 
would seek recognition for this Folk-lore. 

The cave in which the Bruce did hide 
The bleak wars of independence at a lull, outside 
Despondent and defeated in 1313 
Robert the 1st was inspired by what he had seen. 

--first two stanzas of The Overlord of Annandale by Danny Reynolds, 2006

Perhaps you have heard the old yarn about Bruce and the spider-- a parable, really-- about never giving up. The Bruce in this story is the first Robert the Bruce who lead Scotland to victory over the first war for independence from England at the turn of the 14th century. He's a national hero still today in Scotland. But while he was the first Lord of Annandale...

...there was this dude, way back in The Day (mid-12th century), who has gone down in history as the first to bear the surname Johnestoun (or Johnstone), the now anglicized Johnston (with or without the "t"), one John Johnston, the (pardon the pun) John(ny) Appleseed of the Scots Clan Johnston, from which I purport myself to be descended (dangling precariously from a gene strand, from at least 35 generations up). Robert the Bruce the First Lord of Annandale himself rewarded John for fighting bravely along side him during the Norman Conquest. John was granted the whole 800-some-odd-square-mile strath (valley area) of Annandale to govern as lord.

Stories about the origin of the name Johnston can be found in many versions, but this one from billwilliams.org is the one I like best (though, what follows is a close second!)...

One of the Norman Lords arriving in Scotland in the 1100s was a man named "John". At that time surnames were not being used. They did not appear until 1,000 AD. The first people in Scotland to acquire surnames were the Norman Nobeles, who came from France with William the Conqueror and were of Viking ancestry. The "John" mentioned, had lands granted to him by the Bruce family. Documents show the name as simply "John", that being the only name he had. Those lands became known as "Johnstun" or "John's town". "Tun" from the Celtic language translates to "town" or "lands".

His son Gilbert was to first use the surname Johnstun in the period from 1170-1194. Gilbert was the first member of the family of Johnstone who took the surname, derived from the lands called after his father John.

The foregoing account is supported by Fraser in his book, The Annandale Family Book of Johnstones, where he states: "Either from the first Bruce of Annandale, who settled there in 1124 or his immediate successor, 'John', father of Sir Gilbert Johnstone, obtained the lands of Johnstone. They were situated in the heart of Bruce's great Lordship, and not far distant from his famous castle of Lochmaben. 'John' of the single name, who either by inheritance of gift from Robert Bruce, received lands in Annandale and bestowed his own name on them, calling them 'Johnstun', now 'Johnstone', both estate and parish. His son Gilbert is called indifferently Gilbert, son of John, or Gilbert de Johnstune".

The Johnston Clan of Annandale held a chunk of turf on the southern edge of the Scottish Lowlands, on the English border, about the size of Dallas County in Texas. And they feuded a lot with their neighbors, most notably the Maxwell Clan to the west. They must have made peace in the late 16th century, because a Johnston son married a Maxwell daughter and they became my 11th great-grandparents.

Around 1630, there's a fork in my Johnston line that bows out a ways and then, according to my hypothesis, reunites somewhere in the ancestors that follow a guy named Gowain Johnestoun (aka Gavin Johnston) born in the mid-1400s. He is very probably directly related to the John that started it all, as were practically all the Johnstons of his day. I just cannot find corroborative proof of his father's name, which is a bummer since it puts my direct descendancy to King Crimthann (who was the King of Ireland when Jesus was born; see previous post) and, I suppose, my kilt, on hold for the time being...

So, as I was looking around, I chanced upon this more romantic and hardly implausible explanation for the name Johnston (if not for the geographic reference and source of info, Coat of Arms Store-- a pretty cool site):

JOHNSTON is among the twenty most common names in Ireland. They came as settlers from Scotland and England during the 17th century, and settled mainly in Ulster. The associated arms are recorded in Burkes General Armory. Ulster King of Arms in 1884. Early records of the name mention Gilbert, son of John, who appears in charters in 1195. The name was originally derived from the Hebrew given name YOCJANAN (Jehovah has favoured me with a son), and the name was adopted into the Latin (via Greek) as JOHANNES. This name has enjoyed enormous popularity in Europe, being given in honour of St. John the Baptist, precurser of Christ and of St. John the Evangelist, author of the fourth gospel, as well as others of the nearly one thousand saints of the name. There are numerous variant spellings of the surname, and it is known to every country in the world in different forms.

And ancestry.com has this short explanation for the origin of the Johnston name, which backs up the first version above: Habitational name, deriving in most cases from the place so called in Annandale, in Dumfriesshire. This is derived from the genitive case of the personal name John + Middle English tone, toun ‘settlement’ (Old English tun). There are other places in Scotland so called, including the city of Perth, which used to be known as St. John’s Toun, and some of these may also be sources of the surname. Variant of Johnson, with intrusive -t-.

Anyway. Time's running out. Monday it's back to the front. Maybe between now and then I can connect the dots and order my kilt (juuuuuuuust kiddin', dear...no need to glare like that)...

As a postscript, I must tell you of the Devil's Beef Tub. The 53-mile Annandale Way, "a walk which gets under the skin of the landscape, offering the walker glimpses into the history and hidden secrets of this quiet and tranquil part of Scotland, parts of which have remained undisturbed for centuries," circumnavigates it. A visit to the Devil's Beef Tub (in my Clan Johnston kilt, of course) is now on my bucket list.

That's it for now.  С Богом!