Don Crawford McClanahan's Page

Dear Don,

Please excuse my typos in the first message. I'll try and do better this time.

There were McClanahans in Augusta County, the Virginia Colony, in the early 1700's. They were possibly Ulster-Scots. They would have come in from Ireland becase they'd long lived in Ulster, which borders Scotland, but is actually in Ireland. They'd been settled there during the Reformation to protect the Protestant Scots from any possible invasion by the Catholic Irish.

However, not unless you've traced, and verified through each generation, your descendency from the Augusta County McClanahans, can you be certain that you're related to these people. There were McClanhans all over Virginia, and in many of the other colonies as well. And no, they weren't all related to one another - far from it! You won't know which of the many McClanahan groups you're related to until you've discovered that by doing the necessary research.

As for the changes in the spelling of your surname, that resulted from the fact all spelling was phonetic then. There are no names, including Smith, that weren't spelled in many different ways.

As for the Thomas Land who reportedly married Elenor McCClanahan in Augusta County, nobody reporting that cites any sources. and Doug Land and I have yet to find any verification. Until we do, it's just something somebody said, and lots of people have passed it on without knowing who first said it, or why.

Wihing you look in your research.

Always,
Lynn

No...not that I am aware of. My GA ancestors were Wilkinson, Cross, Adams, Dover, Purvis, Saxon