McKay Origins
The content of this page (and sections of some of the subsequent pages) must largely be attributed to a McKay cousin Elizabeth Tulloch who, sadly, is no longer with us having passed in Edinburgh in 2021. It was some time after the website author (Bill McKay) had begun looking into McKay ancestry that he learned for the first time of Elizabeth’s existence and, later, of her work in documenting McKay ancestors and related information, by which time she was on end of life care in an Edinburgh hospice.
Elizabeth and her husband Robert Tulloch spent many years in Alloa near Stirling and then in Edinburgh as Robert and Elizabeth relocated due to Robert’s employment as an engineer for the Distiller’s Company and ultimately the Holyrood Brewery in Edinburgh. Elizabeth spent time as a researcher at the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh and, although not employed by them, had clients around the world for whom she used her expertise in genealogy to trace family connections for them. She was the originator of the early McKay family tree and documents which many members of the family have owned paper copies of over the years in part if not in full, subsequently annotated for their own purposes. Unfortunately Elizabeth suffered a severe stoke several years ago and died after some time at Braid Hills Care Home in Edinburgh on September 29th 2021. She had red hair which she apparently attributed to her maternal Sommerville family line, but there are known examples also in the McKay line of varying shades and degree of natural curls.
The question of the origins of the Glenlivet McKays still remains unanswered. We know that they were at Nether Clashnore prior to 1708 but beyond that is conjecture.
The McKay-Duff aspect, referred to elsewhere (Click Here to see), is a curious reflection of the 11th century link between the houses of Mackay (original spelling) and Duff on which connection the Mackays based their unsuccessful claim to the disputed throne of David 1 in 1163.
There is one school of thought that the Mackays are natives of Strathnaver but they were in fact only banished there after the King had suppressed them with the aid of Norman mercenaries. Previously they had had their stronghold in Moray which at the time included parts of Inverness and Ross. Some could have escaped banishment by retreating into remote glens to avoid detection, and it could be that some of the McKays in the Moray/Glenlivet area might be accounted for in this way.
Another school of thought regards those McKays located in the Inverness region as belonging to the Clan McDhai (Gaelic pronunciation phonetically very similar to McKay) or Davidson, part of the confederation of clans under Clan Chattan. The McDhais were settled in Inveravon (Glenlivet) in the 12th-13th centuries, later moving North in the 14th-15th centuries. Again, a number of them may have remained in the area, and the Glenlivet McKays we have come to know as family could be their descendants.