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Within this site I have set out to bring together as much information on the subject of Scottish Clans and their history from the past to the present.
Yes there are hundreds if not thousands of Scottish web sites on the topic of Scotland and their people;
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According to some Historical authorities, the original population of the Scottish Highlands and Islands consisted of tribes who occupied extensive tracts of land, and were governed by powerful chiefs called Earls. The Head Earl, or supreme King, was called Ard ltigh. To him the others gave unquestioning allegiance.
The manner of governing was akin to that of clanship, by which, according to Skene and Robertson, it was superseded in the thirteenth century.
The new rule was more compact, every member of the same tribe, or subdivision of a tribe respectively, had a common surname, and united homage and unswerving service in peace or war were freely given to the chief, who was the protecting head of all.

ORIGINS OF THE CLANS

Mythological founders have often been claimed by clans, reinforcing both their status and a romantic and glorified notion of their origins. Most powerful clans appropriated for themselves fabulous origins based on Celtic mythology. Thus the political rivalry between Clan Donald, who claimed to be descended from either Conn, a second-century king of Ulster, or Cuchulainn, the legendary hero of Ulster, and the Campbells, who claimed Diarmaid the Boar as their progenitor, was rooted in the Fenian or Fingalian cycle. On the other hand, others such as the McKinnons and the McGregors were content to claim common ancestry from the Alpin family who united the Scottish kingdom in 843. Only one confederation of clans, that of the MacSweens, Laments, MacLeys, MacLachlans and MacNeills, who emerged to prominence in Knapdale and Cowal in the twelfth century, can trace one line of their ancestry back to the fifth century - to Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland. In reality, the progenitors of the clans can rarely be authenticated further back than the eleventh century and a continuity of lineage in most cannot be detected until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The emergence of the clans has less to do with ethnicity than with political turmoil and social opportunity. The Scottish Crown's reconquest of Argyll and the Western Isles from the Norse in the thirteenth century, following on from the pacification of Moray and the northern rebellions in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, created opportunities for lay and even ecclesiastical warlords with the assistance of their immediate kindred, to impose their dominance over diverse localities whose indigenous families accepted their protection, either willingly or by force. Although these warrior chiefs can be primarily categorised as Celtic, their origins range from Gaelic to Norse-Gaelic to British. Moreover, the political instability and dislocation which resulted from the Wars of Independence fought against the English Crown had, by the outset of the fourteenth century, created further scope for Celtic territorial expansion. It also allowed an influx of Anglo kindreds such as Camerons, Frasers, Chisholms, Menzies and Grants, whose ethnic origins ranged from Anglo-Norman to Anglian to Flemish, to move into the Highlands.
Another significant milestone in the emergence of clanship also arose during the Wars of Independence with the introduction of feudal tenures to regulate landholding, as Robert the Bruce sought to harness and control the martial prowess of the clans through the award of charters. Comprehensive grants of lands and the right to dispense justice in the name of the Crown were given to chiefs and leading gentry of the clans prepared to support the national cause against the English kings. Thus, the MacDonalds were elevated over the MacDougalls, with whom they shared common descent from Somerled, the great Norse-Gaelic warlord of the twelfth century. The subsequent political and cultural aggrandisement of the MacDonalds as Lords of the Isles, over the next two centuries, has tended to obscure the fact that they, like their acquisitive rivals, the Campbells, owed their position not only to their strong ties of kinship and local association, but also to the acceptance and promotion of their territorial influence by the Scottish Crown. Clanship was thereby essentially defined as a product of local association, kinship and feudalism. It is this feudal component, grounded and reinforced by Scots law, which separates clanship from tribalism, and which historically differentiates Scottish clans from aboriginal groups in Australasia, Africa and the Americas.
In the Highlands as in the Lowlands, shared local affinities and assumptions were reflected in the dominance of lordship based on family affiliations until the seventeenth century. In the Highlands, however, clanship had an added cultural association with the Gaelic language. Hence, the territory settled by the indigenous clans was designated Scottish Gaeldom.

THE STRUCTURE OF CLANSHIP The authority of the clan