The generally accepted origin of SIMPSON is England - there's 3 places of that name in Devon; while the generally accepted derivation of SIMSON in Scotland is son of Sim, but the problem is that the "p" comes and goesScttsmpsn wrote:Well I tracked down my great great grandfather and the information I was looking for. He was a counsellor in Edinburgh when they got the Tram and there is a picture of him in the town council with it. I am looking at moving to Scotland in the next few months (if anyone needs an Oracle programmer / project leader of 7 years let me know...)
My grandfather told me our tartan was Royal Stewart...hold the phone...that is an English tartan. My uncle always joked that he heard we were theives once upon a time. Now I understand what he means. If we are Simpson's from England and I can trace 5 generations coming from Scotland than we must have been criminals kicked out of England? I am hoping that we came to our senses and moved on our own knowing full well were are Scottish.
Is this the case or am I actually English? Did the Scots move to England to get booted out again or are we English that moved to Scotland. Could the Simpson last name have originated in Scotland and England or if we go far far back were we always from Scotland?
Cheers,
Scott
As with a good number of other Scottish and English surnames that are very similar, the spelling often changes when there's a move south or north of the border - I have one in my own tree - HARDIE from the Borders for many generations, but when a branch moved down to Tyneside they became HARDY.
So where does that leave you?, - apart from confused?! Until and unless you can find hard evidence you're never going to be able to prove the situation one way or another. There's many other similar examples of spelling variants and intrusive letters when Scottish and English practice is compared. To link such, however, in a definitive manner to the geographical origin many generations previously is a very risky assumption.
That written, if there is a family tradition of a Scottish link way back, then it's likely that there is at least a grain of truth in the tradition.
As to the possible criminal link, all I'd comment is that, as in classical mythology, so in family traditions, - nothing ever becomes smaller.
I was always told that my McLENNANS were the "black sheep" of the family. Only after many years unsuccessful searching did I stumble across the fact that a great-uncle had spent 12 months in military clink in India while serving with the Royal Field Artillery !!............. which was, I must confess, a bit of a disappointment as I'd been eagerly expecting sheep or cattle thiefs, illegal distillers .............................
David
