The McCains in Ireland mid 1800s

Map is the location of McCain families in the mid 1800s.  The group down in County Laois/Offaly (in the south) area are not part of our family, they are Mac Canna surnamed families that used the same anglicised form as we did.  Our family's surname in Gaelic is Mac Eáin. The families in Donegal, Tyrone, Derry, and north Antrim, are our family. They can be connected to descendants that did DNA testing and match us.  The County Laois/Offaly McCains also tested, which is when we discovered their connection to the Mac Canna families from the Loch Neagh area.  The large blue cluster is in Tyrone right across the Folye River from Port Hall.  I visited many of these McCains during my 2008 trip over.  That is the area of highest concentration of our McCains in Ireland to this day.  You can sit on the porch of a McCain home in Port Hall and look across the river to the McCain farms in Tyrone.  The family migrated there from Port Hall in the early 1700s.

McCain Lands in Scotland.

This map a bit blurry as I had to enlarge it, sorry about that, but... it shows well the lands of the McCains in Scotland.  The green areas on either side of Loch Fyne labeled MacLachlan belonged to  Clann Lachlainn.  The lands on the west side of the loch are in Glassary.  Above them you see the lands held by the Scrymgeour family.  There were many marriages between the McCains and Scrymgeours in the 1500s. Fortunately, the records are well preserved in mid Argyll so most of them are recorded. Now an interesting sidebar is the Scrymgeour family is know in Gaelic as the Mac Eáin family.  Our family also used that surname.  There is no paternal DNA link that has turned up so I really do not know the details.  Our McCains took their surname from Ailean Mac Eáin Riabhach and theirs took their surname from a 'John' Scymgeour of note.  In the many land records you can tell the two families were close and were often represented together in lands being handed down.