The HeraldryUpdates to this page will appear at New Additions at My English Ancestry Sites
"Glendinning Scots: habitation name from a place in the parish
of Westerkirk, Dumfires, recorded in 1384 as Glendonwyne. It is apparently
so called from British ancestors of the words glyn valley, din
fort and gwyn fair, white.
Variants: Glenden(n)ing, Clendenning, Clendennen, Clindening. From
Dictionary of Surnames - P. Hanks and F. Hodges OUP 1988.
To these variants I can add: Glendennon (as my ancestors in Co Durham were
called in the 17th century) Glendoning and Glendining (pronounced as in
dining table). The variants beginning with a 'C' are most common in Ireland.
The Glendinnings are a sept of the Douglas Clan and the history of the
name goes back to Adam de Glendonwyn who was alive during the reign of Alexander
III of Scotland, circa 1286.
Educated men in Scotland spoke the language of their allies, the French,
and many surnames developed based on place names - de Glendonwyn meaning
of (or from) Glendonwyn.
Adam's descendants became knights and substantial landholders, fighting
alongside the Douglas clan leaders in their battles with the English and
were often to be found offering themselves to English Kings as hostage for
their countrymen's good behaviour.
The clan grew (that is the followers who took the name Glendinning and who
were not necessarily relations of the principal family) and ultimately
began to spread - across the border to England, over to Ireland during the
Plantation of Ulster in 1610 and on to the New Worlds, Scots being leaders
in emigration.
The most common reasons for the earliest border crossings were raids to
steal English sheep, cattle and horses. Some of these men, known as reivers,
just never went home and were eventually accepted by the community they
chose to settle in.
Following a visit to Glendinning in September 1998, I have added
some photographs, a map and further background information. They are at
The Road Ends at Glendinning.
The Gazeteer entries have been transferred to this page.
The HeraldryAlthough my ancestors are from the North East of England - see The Glendinning Family - (all the way back to the 17th Century) and I have been unable to tie up my line with the Scottish family, at the very beginning of my research in 1986, I took the Coat of Arms that my father had (see below) to the College of Arms in London, who found it was not registered at the Lyon Court and therefore not valid, whatever the heraldry books say. The family may have used it but it was not officially recognised.
SHIELD: Quarterly; argent and sable (silver and black),
a cross parted per cross indented, and countercharged of the same.
CREST: a maunch (the sleeve of a coat) or (gold), upon the point
of a sword.
MOTTO: "Have Faith in Christ."
Our heraldry has also been tinkered with by others somewhere along the
line - the addition of the thistle, white rose and clover to indicate the
family flourishes in Scotland, England and Ireland is purely a 20th Century
invention.
COLLINS J.P.
A Brief Memorial to the Glendinning Family from the Seige of Derry to the
Present Day.
Privately published by the author Norwich, Connecticut, U.S.A. 1903.
(Details an Irish branch from Brackagh, Northern Ireland. Dates from 1768
- with some prior speculation - to 1903 {by then the family were in America}
with the addition to 1985 of a branch in Sydney, Australia). Copy lodged
at the Library of The Society
of Genealogists. Family trees drawn from this book can be found at
Some Irish Glendinnings.
List from Joan P.S. Ferguson's 'Scottish Family Histories' - National
Library of Scotland 1986.
Glendinning:
CLINDENING, Gerald Talbot (see below)
The House of Glendonwyn, a record of its progenitors, members and descendants
for a thousand years. 12pts. Adelaide, 1933-43. Library reference numbers:
ED/N-1 (1971.155) QZ/L37 QZ/P-1 QZ/P16
GLENDINNING, P.
House of Glendinning, Edinburgh, 1879. (Reprinted from the Eskdale and
Liddesdale Advertiser ). Library reference numbers: ED/N-1 (S.120.e)
QZ/P11 ED/N-2 GL/U-1 QZ/P-1 QZ/P99
Glendonyng:
REID, Robert Corsane
The Family of Glendonyng (InTransactions of Dumfriesshire and Galloway
Natural History & Antiquarian Society, 3rd series, vol.xxii, 1938-40,
pp. 10-17). Library reference number: ED/N-1 (J.187)
Not long after visiting the College of Arms, I found Clindening's "The
House of Glendonwyn" in the British Library Catalogue and borrowed
it. It duplicates the information we have about Adam and his descendants,
but in a wonderful flight of fancy takes him back to Nomenoe, King of Britanny
in 841. Adam is supposed to be a 15th generation descendant of this king.
Clindening also claimed direct descent for himself.
The author had Adam as the youngest of four sons of Hugh FitzHenry Knight
of Ravensworth, Yorkshire and Aubrey, daughter of Sir William de Steyngrave.
He was known as FitzHugh before the Glendonwyn lands were granted to him.
His brother Henry fought at Bannockburn and was Constable of Barnard's Castle
in 1315 and another (John of Catton) married Isabel de Rihil, the heiress
to the manor of Whittingham in Northumberland.
I am unable to take this seriously any more, although at the time I did
a bit of sleuthing and found a niece of the author still alive in Australia.
She promised to search through a shoebox of notes he had left her, but she
passed away before we could reach any satisfactory conclusion. I cannot
see how Clindening managed to make these connections!
Alex Glendinning. e-mail: glen@itl.net
Sharon Clarke's Glendinning
and Clarke Families.
Clendenin
(Scotland-> Ireland-> America) | Gary & Angela Aldam's
Glendining
in Devon (1707 to date) | Scots
Border Families | Sean Ruttledge's Border
Tour | GENUKI: Dumfriesshire
| General Register
Office of Scotland | National Museums
of Scotland | Royal
Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland |
Nearest town - Iain Logan's Langholm
Page | During my visit I stayed at the Crown
Hotel there | In Search
of the Border Reivers | Dumfries
& Galloway FHS | The
Scottish Page American site devoted to research in Dumfries-Galloway
| There is now a Clendinen
Research Page up and running, courtesy of Sharon
Bryant | Peter
Glendinning's Home Page | The
House of Douglas Home Page | The
Glendinning Sept | Clan
Douglas Society of North America | Clan
Douglas (Nova Scotia) Home Page | W.
Glendinning and Son Kilt Hire and Sales.
The Glendinning Mailing List: send "subscribe" to:
GLENDINNING-L-request@rootsweb.com
BORDER. A mailing list for anyone interested in genealogy, history, or culture related to the counties which surround the border of Scotland and England. A unique culture evolved in this area which was different from both southern English and either highland or lowland Scottish culture. Many people from the borders were transported to Northern Ireland or left for the colonies. Mailing address for postings is border-l@rootsweb.com. To subscribe send the word subscribe as the only text in the body of a message to border-l-request@rootsweb.com (mail mode) or border-d-request@rootsweb.com (digest mode). Courtesy of John Fuller's United Kingdom Mailing Lists.
May 9 1998 - Message received from Sharon Bryant listowner for the Clendinen mailing list which has been set up to study the name Clendinen (in any of its variant spellings) and to attempt to establish connections from America to Ireland/Scotland. To subscribe to the list: Clendinen-L-request@rootsweb.com. Subject area left blank. Body of message to contain single word subscribe. Subscribing in this manner will give the subscriber each message as it is posted to the list. To receive a single compiled entry (on a regular basis) send same message to Clendinen-D-request@rootsweb.com
The 'Glendinning Horse Thieves' informal surname Mailing List- sign up at petebonn@ids.net