John McCain's Links to Scottish King Shot Down by Experts

Gibson Square, the publishers behind Senator John McCain's new book, Hard Call, have announced that "John McCain's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and related to the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, on his mother's side". One problem: a group of professional genealogists and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as "wonderful fiction" and "baloney".

You can read more in the (U.K. Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/20/johnmccain.uselections2008

Comments

[Lindsey]

Why not give McCain the benefit of the doubt? After all, his last name sure is Scotch. I also take exception to someone stating that nobody can trace their family history past the middle ages. Over the last 10 years I've traced my mother's side to Charlemagne and on my dad's side I've been able to trace roots back to the Emperor Hadrian. So yes, it can be done!

[boeufdaisy]

Interestingly, the Guardian article (which seems only to say that McCain is not the male heir of Robert the Bruce, a claim that McCain never made) states that McCain's biography states that his *UNCLE* married Mary Louise Earle, a descendant of Robert the Bruce. That is *NOT* a claim that McCain is descended from Robert the Bruce!

British journalists have once again demonstrated that headlines, rather than content or truth, is their true interest. The reasoning of the genealogists quoted is completely specious (Earle is not a Scottish name, so no one named Earle is descended from anyone Scottish! Astonishing! Robert the Bruce was not descended from Charlemagne, so no one alive today is the descendant of both Robert the Bruce and Charlemagne. Laughable.)

For the documented history of McCain's ancestors, the best start is with the Ahnentafel by William Addams Reitwiesner at the linked URL. Via his ancestor Anne Hampden, McCain is a descendant of Edward I, King of England. This means that McCain's medieval ancestry is well known, and that Katie Stevenson's assertion that "it's virtually impossible to prove ancestry through the middle ages" is complete nonsense.

[Bob]

Indeed, why not give McCain the benefit of the doubt? As the article says: "Robert I was believed to have had up to a dozen children — several illegitimately. Basic calculations suggested there could be as many as 200 million people distantly related to him. "In that sense McCain probably is descended from Bruce. So am I. So are you. So is everyone."" I don't know, but it’s probably true to say this of Charlemagne also. I think that what the article was pointing out was that these (real or imaginary) links to random historical people are pretty meaningless.
There was also an implied desire that people look at history realistically and not through the rose tinted glasses of the romance that builds up around these people. With a first name Robert, I was brought up to consider Robert the Bruce (with his spider) to be one of the heroes I should try to emulate, I'm not sure that I want to do that now that I have greater knowledge of his character.

[theKiwi]

>After all, his last name sure is Scotch.<

Nope, never heard of McCain Whiskey.

"His last name sure is Scottish" would be correct.

Cheers

Roger

[Bob]

McCain Whiskey would demonstrate possible Irish descent not Scottish.

[LindaS]

It was a slow news day, right? Not sure why you're linking a misleading article to your genealogy newsletter. The "experts" cited don't appear to have done even a modicum of genealogical research on the claim!

Fwiw, I doubt there was accurate genealogical proof for the claim in the first place, but no one has sourced that either!

:-)

[Tim]

"Not so, according to Dr Katie Stevenson, a lecturer in medieval studies at the University of St Andrews. "What wonderful fiction," she said. "Mary Louise Earle's claims to descent from Robert the Bruce are likely to be fantasy. Earle is not a Scottish name. I think it is incredibly unlikely that name would be related to Robert the Bruce. Charlemagne and Robert the Bruce were not connected — that's ludicrous.""

I think Katie Stevenson should lose her doctorate after a comment like that. I have traced my ancestry back to both Robert the Bruce and Charlemagne, and even though my surname is Scottish, it is through my mother's side (with mostly German names) that the connection is made. I am also descended from Edward I Longshanks. Does Ms. Stevenson believe no one can be related to both Robert and Edward? How about Rolph Ganger and King Charles (I forget which one) of France?

This many years later, her comments are absurd. The descendant lines of both have had a few hundred years to branch out and meet, probably more than once. Maybe Ms. Stevenson has been so immersed in her medieval studies she now believes she is living in the same time period as those she is studying.

[Aggie]

What's in a name? Very little! As that lecturer at St. Andrews University should know.

Agnew is a Scots and Scots-Irish name but Spiro Agnew was GREEK. He "stole" our name and we were subjected to a lot of personal abuse because of people's ignorance. Does that make him of Scottish descent? Or a Scots-Irish ancestry impossible for me? She should see my brother's DNA profile!

As to medieval descent, be careful what you claim. Have you yourself found reliable primary documentary evidence for each and every connection? Especially if you claim descent in a female line. Women - even daughters of kings - were rarely documented beyond a given name. Is your Latin, Greek, Chaucerian English, High German etc up to verifying the content of documents? Or have you cut and pasted from some book assuming it was correct because it was in print?

Above all don't assume - Ancestry.com mechanical melding to the contrary - that Ancestry and World Family trees are DOCUMENTATION. They are heresay at best and more often dead wrong based on unfounded assumption and misinterpretation.

I just found that someone had appended to one of my lines (because the name was the same) a woman named Jane born in 1790 as the eldest daughter of an Elizabeth who was not born until 1801! Eldest Jane was but she most assuredly was not the daughter of the Elizabeth born in 1801!

That was the turn of the 18th to 19th century. Now subtract 3 to 8 centuries of wars, fires, miscopying of hand written and rewritten records, plus manipulation for political purposes and you are wandering in a quadmire. Read current papers on medieval topics in scholarly American and British genealogical journals and it may markely temper your certainty about your claimed descent.

[Roger Rodgering]

Indeed, why not give the Great White Dope the benefit of the doubt. Robert the Bruce was after all keen on war, too.

[Carlos]

Perhaps in the future we should refer to all dubious genealogies linking living individuals to ancient Scottish royalty as "McClaims".

John McCain is more likely related to the McDonald Clan of the Golden Arches. There's no meat to his campaign promises, and like his bald-headed cousin Ronald McDonald, he's been around a helluva long time.

I suspect we'll find that John McCain's haggis is made of baloney.

[Dennis Hawver]

Suggestion to Roger and Carlos: There are a lot of websites and blogs that welcome partisan political comment. Let's keep THIS one for genealogy.
Thanks.

[Dr Bruce Durie]

As the genealogist who was consulted on the original Guardian article (and who contributed the "back to Charlemagne" tree) I should comment on all of this.

I'm not saying I was misquoted in the article, and I did have a chance to see the near-final version before it went out, but there were things I said that didn't get into the newspaper, for all the usual reasons.

First, it is a racing certainty that McCain (and his great-aunt) are descendants of R the B. We all are. The simplest bit of statistics will show that from 12 (likely) children, each of those having only 2 offspring and so on down 28 generations, the number of living descendants could well be over 200 million.
The chances are that Senator McCain is so descended more than once (intermarriage etc.).
So, my point was NOT that he isn't descended, but that if he IS, it's unremarkable. He's also descended (probably) from the same catalogue of sheep-stealers, ne'er-do-wells and ladies of negotiable affection that we all are. So why pick out R the B? It is just the case that there is no DOCUMENTED pedigree in existence that links the Earle family to the Bruces. But I'd be happy to research it if the McCains would pay for it!
Second, why would anyone want to claim descent from such an outright scoundrel? Just because he was a king? Over here, we were so worried about King Robert that we had to write a begging letter to the Pope promising to behave if he protected our "poor little Scotland" from the English and that we would take down R the B if he didn't do as the Pope told him. It's now called "The Declaration of Arbroath", and it's not a document we should be proud of.
Third, there are some real historical howlers in John McCain's book. For instance, did you know that it was the Presbyterians who were the supporters of Mary Queen of Scots and were persecuted by Elizabeth of England after she had Mary executed? No, me neither. For 450 years, we've all been thinking it was the Catholics who were at the end of the bad treament. You live and learn.

As for other posts:
1. Half of Europe (literally) is descended from Charlemagne. Again unremarkable. But in very few families is there any actual documentary proof. (There is in the case of Earle, McCain's aunt's surname, by the way.)
2. Anyone claiming descent from Hadrian is hereby challenged to provide the documents that show this. And I don't mean "I saw it in a book"!
3. The true lesson of genealogy is that we're all connected somehow. We'll be very pleased to have Senator McCain assert his Scottish (NOT "Scotch" - that's whisky!) roots, provided he in turn agrees to uphold Scottish values - no accepting any old nonsense at face value, no being horrible to foreigners (except the English, of course, but we're excused that one because they started it), and no showing off!

Dr Bruce Durie
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland

[Gordon Banks]

Dr. Durie, are you the one who asserted Robert the Bruce was not descended from Charlemagne? That is not my understanding.

Robert the Bruce murdered my ancestor, John Comyn, incidentally, in a church no less. But I suspect Comyn was a scoundrel as well.

[Dr Bruce Durie]

I don't think anyone said Bruce wasn't linked to Charlemagne in the article itself. Only on this forum.
It would benefit everyone to read the full article.
What I and my colleagues were saying is that we can all speculate as much as we like, but genealogy demands forensic standards of proof and if the documents ain't there, no amount of wishful thinking will make it so.
For example, there is one missing generation in my family tree, in documentary terms, that would (if found) connect me right back to 1250. I don't feel justified in assuming it's there if I can't show it to anyone.
Now, "new" old documents come to light or get rediscovered all the time. So history changes. That's part of its attraction.

Bruce

[Barry R McCain]

I am the administrator of the McCain DNA Project. Alas, all I have are facts, no political jabs or huzzas, just the clear concise precision of Y chromosome DNA testing.

The Mississippi McCains, from which John McCain's family originates, has been the subject of a five year running DNA project. Now this does not address various maternal lines of his family, but it does relate to the general accuracy of his family's oral history; on the paternal aspect of his family's history the Senator has been accurate. And it is even possible that his haplotype is that of a dynastic family that rivals the famous R1b1c7 Northwest Irish modal, research on-going right now on that aspect.

The family is as Gaelic as can be, name is Mac Eáin in Irish, from County Antrim, but a branch also in Donegal. Those McCains that stayed in Ireland have been DNA tested, do match the Mississippi McCains. There are also McCain branches now located in Ontario, New Brunswick, Texas, etc.

aspects of this story are found at: http://www.ulsterheritage.com

and several articles on Senator McCain's ancestry can be found at:

http://uhblog.ulsterheritage.com/

No politics, just the DNA aspects of his interesting roots.

Barry R McCain

[Dr Bruce Durie]

Fabulous! Any consonances with current Scottish McIans etc?
And could you post the haplotype?
Thanks

Dr B Durie

[Rachel]

It would appear John McCain's grasp of history is as pathetic as his self-admitted poor understanding of economics. Robert the Bruce was a scoundrel and were he in my lineage, I'd certainly not brag about it.

[Richard A. Pence]

Boy, such silliness.

I see where someone claims that it is possible to trace to Robert the Bruce b ecause she or he has traced to Charlegmagne and some other sould who goes back evern rurther. All in the last year. What's up for next year? Adam?

(Such claims are preposterous and I'm astonished to see them publicly made.)

Someone else said, after all, McLain didn't make the claim. What about this: "A spokesman for Mr McCain said last night: 'The ancestry claim is based upon a genealogical study that the McCain family had in their possession, which traced the McCain family roots back to Robert the Bruce.'"

That sure doesn't sound to me like he's denying it. Or is that what the politician's call a "nondenial denial"?

Like the claims back to Charlemagne, it sure would be interesting to look at the documentation. It there is one of thos "Rebcca, daughter or Sir George" citations in there it sorta spoils it for me.

[Richard A. Pence]

Roger wrote:

>> After all, his last name sure is Scotch.

> Nope, never heard of McCain Whiskey.

> "His last name sure is Scottish" would be correct.

> Cheers>
> Roger

Dear Roger:

In several dictionaries I own, the first definition of "Stotch" is "the people of Scotland."

The idea that "Scotch is a whiskey, not people" is one of those modern affectations. Some folks apparently think it is unseemly to association people with a word association with booze. Nevertheless, calling the people of Scotland "Scotch" is not an affront to mankind. It has been used that way for centuries.

[boeufdaisy]

Bruce Durie claims that "it would benefit everyone to read the full article". Hardly the case, since it's full of faulty reasoning and misinformation. Let me simply comment on what he's stated here, since it hasn't been filtered through a reporter's agenda, political or otherwise:

He says in "very few families is there any actual documentary proof" of descent from Charlemagne. This is simply wrong. Thousands of families have quite well-documented descents from royalty, without any "missing generations" or "speculation". And there's plenty of documentation for the descent of (most of) those royals from Charlemagne. Surely this is something that the "academic manager, genealogical studies at the University of Strathclyde" should be familiar with?

Perhaps he meant to say "some family's descents from Charlemagne turn out to be invalid when examined closely." But that's not at all the same thing as he actually said.

And I would think someone at an academic institution would make his approval of McCain asserting his Scottish origins contingent upon their accuracy, rather than on his acceptance of Durie's version of Scottish values! Quite presumptuous.

[Dr Bruce Durie]

Except I wasn't the one who made the original comment about Charlemagne in the article, and did, in fact, provide the Guardian with evidence of the Earle-Charlemagne link.

Bruce

PS The modern usage of "Scotch" is reserved for whisky (not "whiskey", which is Irish and American). The people of Scotland prefer to be called Scottish and our language Scots.

[Gordon Banks]

Bruce,

As you suggested, I read the article again, and it was one Dr. Katie Stevenson who was quoted thus: "Charlemagne and Robert the Bruce were not connected — that's ludicrous." I assume then you don't want to defend her comment?

I would think if you are going to demand "forensic" proof in genealogy, then DNA is the only thing that would do. And I agree, for no paper trail can prove actual biological connections. The paper trails do exist, however, for millions of Americans back to Charlemagne based on genealogies of the colonists of New England and Virginia.

The best I have been able to do in my lines with DNA is to presumptively prove a connection to Orme de Davenport, c 1088, on the grounds that my cousin's Y-DNA matches that of English Davenports with ancestors living on the manors of the Davenport descendants in Cheshire.

And of course, DNA evidence at the present only proves patrilineal lines. No one is claiming male-line inheritance back to Bruce or Charlemagne.

[Pamela]

Making fun of McCAIN's ancestry is just another typical means to discredit someone in the political realm. If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything.

[Carolyn]

I'm not really interested in whom John McCain thinks he's related to nearly 1000 years ago, whether its Robert the Bruce or William Wallace or Peter Cottontail. Its all specious and can't be proven. What can be proven however is John McCain's descent from William Alexander McCain (1812-1863) who owned more than 50 slaves (ref: 1860 US Census Slave Schedule, Carroll Co., MS) and then joined the Confederate States of America to defend his right to keep those slaves. Is that what he means by "Faith of our Fathers"?? Not what I'd call good Christians.

[Kaye Coller]

I certainly hope nobody is basing his/her decision about who to vote for on the candidate's genealogy.