Official website for the  

House  of  Wilson  of  Kilwinnet

HEAD:

The Much Honoured John George Wilson of Kilwinnet, the laird of Kilwinnet 

HEIR: Robert Fergus Wilson of Kilwinnet, the younger

LANDS:

Kilwinnet, South Ayrshire

HISTORY:

  The surname Wilson means ‘son of Will’ - Will being a shortened form of the personal name William derived from the Germanic word ‘Willahelm’ later Normanised.

William, along with other personal names of Continental origin, was introduced into Britain around the 11^th century by ruling Norman families. The name developed in popularity when William the Conqueror became William I of England. In Scotland, William as a personal name, had arrived there by the reign of William the Lion (1165-1214) when abbots, a bishop, chamberlain, chancellor and sheriff, were all recorded with the personal name William. The name soon found its way into the Scottish Highlands where it became 'Uilleam' for William in the Gaelic language, and 'MacUilleam' for son of William. Some Highland MacUilleams may have anglicised their surname to Wilson on later settling in the Scottish Lowlands. Recent DNA research may indicate more of a possible Highland ancestry for the House of Wilson of Kilwinnet then Lowland Scots.

With the eventual arrival of surnames being adopted in Scotland (not all of them were hereditary in the beginning), for example a John Thomson may have taken his father’s Christian name Thomas for his surname, indicating that he is John, son of Thomas. This form of naming custom is called patronymic - a surname that is derived from the father’s personal name with ‘son’ added on the end. In fact, you could have various men from one extended family ending up with different fixed surnames in later generations, stemming from various patronymic names used within the family earlier. The result of family individuals adopting fixed surnames at different periods may have occurred over two or three generations. One particular family which may have been using the personal names - William, Robert, John and Thomas, could have ended up with any of the following names as patronymic surnames such as Wilson, Robertson, Johnston, and Thomson becoming their fixed surnames. The result being that: all of their blood descendants bearing different fixed surnames while all having a common genetic ancestor. And of course, the same surnames would have evolved independently in other unrelated Scottish families, producing similar surnames which today confuse researchers of family history. The basic rule for those researching a Wilson family is to bear in mind that the Wilsons do not share one common ancestor, or, belong to one Scottish clan - they are a NAME - consisting of an unknown number of unrelated Wilson families. In Scotland, we like to call the Wilson name a clan for fun but really the proper form is name.

The recent development of DNA testing for use by genealogists, continues to reveal that there are a very large number of Wilson families in the World today who appear to have had unrelated founding genetic ancestors in the United Kingdom or the World for that fact. The Wilson DNA project can be viewed at: http://www.m222.net/wilsondna.htm 

Some Wilson families do have an association in some way to a small number of Scottish clans, namely Innes, Gunn, McFarlane and McGregor. It is advised that Wilson individuals researching their particular family history should endeavour to establish, as far as possible, a documented historic connection to a particular clan (or family) or with its feudal territory.

The House of Wilson of Kilwinnet descends from a Robert Wilson who was living in Ayrshire around the mid-1700s and who had earlier family origins in the Renfrewshire town of Paisley. Prior to that, the Kilwinnet Wilsons possibly were resident for many generations in the old Celtic lands of the earldom of Lennox. In 1460, a John Wilson was one of a number of tenants in Duntiglennan, Old Kilpatrick. Adjoining Duntiglennan is the lands of Chocno where a family of Wilsons later emerge from the early parish records around the late 17th century. Family members later appear in Paisley working in the weaving trade and possibly are the ancestral line for the Kilwinnet Wilsons.

The Wilson family may have settled in Old Kilpatrick from the Scottish Highlands - possibly from Argyll or Perthshire - as indicated by recent DNA studies. In regard to the family's deeper origin, one theory is that, it shares an ancient genetic ancestry with a small number of other families, today, bearing various other Scottish surnames and who all collectively possibly share a common genetic ancestor of Dalriadac or Pictish origin. 

This website covers various topics and it is hoped that there will be something of interest to everyone visiting the Wilson family’s ‘cyber seat’.  

  Contact is welcome at: kilwinnet@hotmail.co.uk

LATEST NEWS

December 2010.