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A sept is an English word for a division of a family
Family

Family denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," some cultural anthropology have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts r...
, especially a division of a clan
Scottish clan

Scottish clans , give a sense of identity and shared descent to people in Scotland and to their relations throughout the world, with a formal structure of Scottish clan chiefs officially registered with the court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms which controls the heraldry and Coat of Arms....
. The word might have its origin from Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 septum "enclosure, fold", or it can be an alteration of sect.

The term is found in both Ireland
Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
 and Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
. It is sometimes used to translate the word sliocht, meaning seed, indicating the descendants of a person (i.e., Sliocht Brian Mac Diarmata, the descendants of Brian Mac Dermot).
Related septs
Sil was used within the context of a family or clan, all who bore the same surname, as a manner of distinguishing one group from another.






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A sept is an English word for a division of a family
Family

Family denotes a group of people affiliated by a common ancestry, affinity or co-residence. Although the concept of consanguinity originally referred to relations by "blood," some cultural anthropology have argued that one must understand the idea of "blood" metaphorically, and that many societies understand 'family' through other concepts r...
, especially a division of a clan
Scottish clan

Scottish clans , give a sense of identity and shared descent to people in Scotland and to their relations throughout the world, with a formal structure of Scottish clan chiefs officially registered with the court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms which controls the heraldry and Coat of Arms....
. The word might have its origin from Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 septum "enclosure, fold", or it can be an alteration of sect.

The term is found in both Ireland
Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
 and Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
. It is sometimes used to translate the word sliocht, meaning seed, indicating the descendants of a person (i.e., Sliocht Brian Mac Diarmata, the descendants of Brian Mac Dermot).

Related septs


Sil was used within the context of a family or clan, all who bore the same surname, as a manner of distinguishing one group from another. For example: a family called Mac an Bhaird
Mac an Bhaird

The Mac/Nic an Bh?ird family was one of the learned families of late medieval Ireland. The name has evolved over many centuries, the anglicized forms coming down to us as MacAward, McWard, MacEward, MacEvard, Macanward, M'Ward, and its most commonly used variant today: Ward....
 (Anglicized as Ward) might be divided into septs such as Sil Sean mac Brian, Sil Conchobhar Og, Sil Sen Conn, Sil Cu Connacht. All of these individual lines might further sub-divide into still more septs, which in turn sometimes led to a new surname, and/or the emergence of the family considered a clan in their own right. This type of sept was normal in Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
.

Scottish clan septs


In the context of Scottish clans, septs are families that followed another family's chief. These smaller septs would then make up, and be part of the chief's larger clan. In some cases, a sept would follow another chief if two families were linked through marriage. However, if a family lived on the land of a powerful laird, they would follow him whether they were related or not. Bonds of manrent were sometimes used to bind lesser chiefs and his followers to more powerful chiefs.

Today sept lists are used by clan societies to recruit new members. Such lists date back to the 19th century, when clan societies and tartan
Tartan

Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven cloth, now used in many other materials....
 manufacturers attempted to capitalise on the enthusiasm and interest for all things Scottish. Lists were drawn up that linked as many surname
Surname

A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases a surname is a family name; the family-name meaning first appeared in 1375....
s as possible to a particular clan. In this way people without a "clan name" could connect to a Scottish clan and thus feel "entitled" to its tartan. One modern member of the Lyon Court has described the attribution of some such names to particular clans as being based upon nothing but imagination, and in others cases upon a single recorded instance of a surname. Also, common surnames, found throughout the British Isles
British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include Great Britain and Ireland, and numerous smaller islands....
, were linked to particular clans. For example, the surname Miller
Miller (name)

The surname Miller is primarily of Scotland origin, from Orkney, Caithness, Perth and Kinross, Stirling , North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire....
 was made a sept of Clan Macfarlane
Clan MacFarlane

Clan MacFarlane is a Scottish highlands Scottish clan. The clan claims a descent from the old line of the Earls of Lennox. For some time there had been some controversy as to the descent of these earls, with both Gaels and Anglo-Saxons origins given....
, and Taylor
Taylor (surname)

Taylor is a Middle English occupational surname of Old French origin, derived from the Norman French word taileur . First historical evidence of the surname dates to County of Somerset in 1182....
 of Clan Cameron
Clan Cameron

Clan Cameron is a West Highland Scottish clan, with one main branch Lochiel, and numerous cadet branches such as Erracht, Clunes, Glen Nevis, and Fassifern....
. Also, patronymic
Patronymic

A patronym or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor....
 forms of common personal names were also linked to particular clans. This has led to the false impression that many surnames have one origin and are all related to one another, and that such surnames are historically connected to one particular clan.

Irish septs


Historically, the term 'sept' was not used in Ireland until the nineteenth century, long after any notion of clanship had been eradicated. The English word 'sept' is most accurate referring to a sub-group within a large clan; especially when that group has taken up residence outside of their clan's original territory. (O'Neill
O'Neill

O'Neill may refer to:People* O'Neill - origin and history of the Irish surname; people with the name* Dan O'Neill, radical cartoonist of the 1960s and 1970s who became intentionally involved in lawsuits with Disney....
, MacSweeney
Clan Sweeney

Clan Sweeney is an Irish clan of Scotland origin. The clan did not permanently settle in Ireland before the beginning of the fourteenth century, when they became Gallowglass soldiers for the O'Donnell of Tyrconnell....
, and O'Connor
O'Connor

O'Connor, originally ? Conchobhair is a surname of Irish origin, which may refer to several different topics:...
 are examples.) Related Irish septs and clans often belong to larger groups, sometimes called tribes, such as the Dál gCais
Dál gCais

The D?l gCais were a dynastic group of related septs located in north Munster who rose to political prominence in the early medieval era in Ireland....
, Uí Néill
Uí Néill

The U? N?ill were Ireland and Scottish dynasties who claimed descent from Niall Noigiallach , an historical High King of Ireland who died about 405....
, Uí Fiachrach
Uí Fiachrach

The U? Fiachrach were a dynasty who originated in, and whose descendants later ruled, the coicead or fifth of Connacht at different times from the mid-first millennium onwards....
, and Uí Maine
Hy-Many

U? Maine, often referred to as Hy Many, was one of the oldest and largest kingdoms located in Connacht, Ireland. Its territory of approximately encompassed all of what is now north, east and south County Galway, south and central County Roscommon, an area near County Clare, and at one stage had apparently subjugated land on the east ba...
. Recently, the late Edward MacLysaght
Edward MacLysaght

Edward MacLysaght was one of the foremost genealogists of twentieth century Ireland. His numerous books on Irish people surnames built upon the work of Patrick Woulfe's Irish Names and Surnames and made him well known to all those researching their family past....
 suggested the English word 'sept' be used in place of the word 'clan' with regards to the historical social structure in Ireland, so as to differentiate it from the centralized Scottish clan system. This would imply that Ireland possessed no formalised clan system, which is not wholly accurate. Brehon Law, the ancient legal system of Ireland clearly defined the clan system in pre-Norman Ireland, which collapsed after the Tudor Conquest
Tudor re-conquest of Ireland

The Tudor re-conquest of Ireland took place under the England Tudor dynasty during the 16th century. Following a failed rebellion against the crown by the FitzGerald in the 1530s, Henry VIII of England was declared King of Ireland by statute of the Irish parliament, with the aim of restoring such central authority as had been lost throughout...
. The Gaels, when speaking of themselves, employed their term 'clan'.

See also

  • Sippe
    Sippe

    Sippe is German language for "clan, kinship, extended family". It continues a Proto-Germanic term *sibbja, which referred to a Band or Confederations of Germanic tribes bound by a treaty or oath, not primarily restricted to blood relations....


Further reading