Lindsay
Variation – Lindsey
Racial Origin – Norman-French
Source – A clan name
To classify the family name of Lindsay as Norman-French origin, when it is Scottish, and to call it a clan name though the Lindsays were neither Guelle nor Highlanders, demands some excuse and explanation.
It happened during the reign of King Malcolm Ceann-mor (“Big Head”) of Scotland, which extended from before to many years after the Norman invasion of England.
In the years immediately following the first victories of William the Conqueror, may Anglo-Saxon warriors and chieftains sought their fortunes anew in Scotland. Malcolm welcomed them. The latter, dissatisfied with the rewards William had granted or withheld, also sought the service of a more generous overlord, And Malcolm welcomed them also.
The Lindsays were among the latter number. At that time they bore a surname descriptive of the locality from which they had come in Normandy, “De Limesay,” to the course of time this has become Lindsay.
The family won for itself, through grants of the Scottish court, lands which through not in the Highlands, bordered on them. Throughout subsequent history they played a large part in the wars and confederations of the Highlands. They adopted the customs and manners of the clans, bore the same weapons as the Gaels, evolved a dress and a tartan similar to those of the Highlanders, and so in the course of time have come to be regarded, let us say, as sort of honorary Highlanders, if not Highlanders by blood. It was Lindsay, indeed, who was first colonel of the famous Black watch Regiment of Highlanders.
