23 and...Not me? Or is that me?

Scottish Pride

As a young man, I was obsessed with my family's history. I learned that I was a distant descendant of John Comyn, a Scottish noble who was killed by Robert the Bruce at Greyfriars church in 1308. I read that John Comyn had a son who gave up his name upon his father's death and began to call himself Lendrum, after the farm where he was living. I was proud that my ancestors were connected to such a remarkable historical narrative, and I felt this gave me a claim to call myself Scottish.


I would spend hours researching big-picture topics such as the history of my ancestral clan, tracking down our heraldic devices, or even trying to figure out what happened to us as a family on the world stage. I learned as much as I could about Scotland's struggle for independence from medieval England, and I even came to admire Robert the Bruce, even though he had murdered my ancestor in a church. 

The Battle of Bannockburn was well-known to me by the time I graduated high school, and I could describe its main event and outcome in detail. I knew that at some point the name Lendrum had become Landrum and that two brothers bearing that name had sailed from Scotland to colonial America in 1688. My love of history was amplified by my connection to the historic Kingdom of Scotland.

23 and...Not Me?

But recently, I encountered something that made me doubt my connections to the Scots. I sent a sample of my DNA off to a genetic analysis company and received results that made me doubt what I had long thought to be true. The report said my ancestors were far more diverse than I had expected. Yes, my ancestors did live near Glasgow in Scotland, but the people of my family who came before me also lived near London and in County Galway in Ireland. The report also shows that my ancestors had roots in both Finland and Carolingian Europe.

It does make a certain kind of sense; Clan Comyn was a Norman family who had gone north with William the Conqueror in 1066. The Normans–as a people–were born of a fusion of Viking raiders and their Frankish subjects. But Irish? How could I possibly have any family from Ireland? It was then that I remembered that many Scots were moved from their homes in Scotland to Ulster and that my Irish ancestry can most likely be linked to the families that were settled on that island to help pacify the fiery population.

Cousin Jack and Texas Pride

I reached out to a man named Jack Landrum who claimed to have done a bit of genealogical research on our family. Where I had looked at “big picture” topics and genetic background, he had done the hard work of tracking names through American history. When I first emailed him, I had no idea what kind of information he would have for me. Because of his careful collection of family data, Jack was able to determine that my ancestors first arrived in Essex County, Virginia, in 1688, and that I was descended from a man named John. I gave him the name of my grandfather, and he was able to supply me with the names of my forefathers leading up to a common ancestor named Larkin. Larkin was the grandchild of another John Landrum, and Jack the Genealogist had just become a distant cousin.

Through further correspondence, I also discovered that I had ancestors who fought in the Texas Revolutionary War, some of whom had originally settled Texas with Stephen F. Austin. As a Texas history teacher, this fills me with a new level of pride at the fact that I am now getting to teach about events in which my ancestors took part.

Ultimately, I cannot confirm that my ancestor was killed in Grey Friar’s Church by one of Europe’s legendary leaders. I also cannot confirm that the Landrums were anything more than a migratory family who eventually found their way to Texas. What I can say is that my family has survived desperate battlefields and brutal conditions to continue on a genealogical legacy that carries on to this day.