Person:Margaret Lynn (5)

Advisory on the Parentage of Margaret Lynn

Some sources have mistakenly placed this Margaret Lynn as the daughter of David Lynn "Lord Laird of Loch Lynn, Scotland". That is incorrect, she is the GRANDDAUGHTER of David Lynn and daughter of William Lynn (David Lynn's son) and Margaret Patton. Her birthdate of 03 July, 1693 makes her too young to have been a daughter of David Lynn. According to one source, Margaret Lynn had a diary entry saying she was the granddaughter of the Laird of Lynn.

The following reference is an example of the incorrect information on Margaret's parentage:

From the book "SOME PROMINENT VIRGINIA FAMILIES" page 643, "That John Lewis went to Scotland and married Margaret, the daughter of Lord Lynn, who lived on Loch (Lake) Lynn. Page 622 of the same book it says " IV. Col Andrew Lewis 4 John 3,Andrew 2,William 1), son of John Lewis (Pioneer) and Margaret Lynn, daughter of the Laird of Loch Lynn, chieftain of the once powerful Clan of Loch Lynn...."

First, Lynn was never a Scottish clan and is not listed as such, nor as a sept of a clan, in any of six well-known works on Scottish clans: (1) "Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland", C. Thomas Cairney and C. Thomas Cairney, Ph.D., McFarland & Company, Inc., North Carolina (1989); (2) "The Highland Clans: the Dynastic Origins, Chiefs, and Background of the Clans and of Some Other Families Connected with Highland History", Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk and David Hicks, Bramhall House, New York (1977); (3) "Historical Geography of the Clans of Scotland", Thomas Brumby Johnston, F.R.G.S., F.R.S.E. & F.S.A.S., and Colonel James A. Robertson, F.S.A.S., W. & A. K. Johnston, Edinburgh and London (1872); (4) "The History of Scotland - Its Highlands, Regiments and Clans", James Browne, LL.D., Francis A. Niccolls & Co., Edinburgh, London, and Boston (1909); (5) "Sketches of the Clans of Scotland", Clansmen J.M.P. - F.W.S., MacLachlan & Stewart, Edinburgh (1884); (6) "The Tartans of the Clans and Families of Scotland", Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, Johnston and Bacon, Edinburgh (1971).

Second, according to Scottish law and custom, a laird or lord would never be called the laird of a body of water but of the land on which he was seated. The Lynns were lords of a minor barony of the same name located in the parish of Dalry, Ayrshire, from about 1204 until 1532; from 1532 to about 1659, they were lords only of Over Lynn, the mains of the former barony (having sold most of the property to the Boyds in 1532). The Lynes were lords of a minor barony of the same name located in the parish of Lyne, Peeblesshire from the mid 12th century to the early 13th. Both baronies are extinct.

Finally, and in any case, the so-called diary of Margaret (Lynn) Lewis was exposed in a 1948 Richmond Times-Dispatch article as a work of fiction. The author in fact was a known, frequent contributor to southern literary magazines, Fanny Fielding; and Fanny Fielding was the pen name of Mary Jane Stith Upshur. See, "Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography", James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, New York (1889) – Vol. 6, pp. 214, 733; "Dictionary of American Biography", Francis S. Drake, Boston (1879) - p. vii; "Living Female Writers of the South", Edit. Author of ‘Southland Writers’, Philadelphia (1872) – pp. 416-19; and "Southland Writers", Ida Raymond, Philadelphia (1870) - Vol. 2, pp. 799-805.