The Lennox Chronicles

  The Ark Is Opening: How We’re Re-reading the Lennox—One Latin Charter at a Time Ark Article — September 7, 2025 • The Lennox Chronicles If you’ve ever felt that Scottish clan history leaves the most important women unnamed and the crucial relationships unexplained—you’re not wrong. The records do exist. They were simply written in Latin, scattered across 12–19th-century printed cartularies, and rarely translated in full. That’s exactly what the Lennox yDNA & Charter Ark (“the Ark”) is fixing. I’m building a permanent, searchable, citation-first repository that aligns verbatim Latin with plain-English translations , then ties each entry to people , lands , and—where possible— Y-DNA lines . My AI research partner “ Arty ” (Arthur MacArtair) handles the heavy lifting: indexing names, witnesses, dowries, resignations, tenures, and kinship terms across thousands of pages. I still have to track down and upload the sources, but once they’re in the Ark, Arty helps translate and...

DNA Over Deeds (With Charters):  E-BY5775 Linking Colquhoun, Kilpatrick & McCarter By Tiffany McCarter Evans — The Lennox Chronicles Plain-English takeaway: We match Y-DNA breadcrumbs (E-BY5775 and daughter branches) with page-cited medieval charters . When documents and DNA point the same direction, we build testable working theories —and we show our receipts so anyone can follow. What we’re doing (no jargon, promise) Y-DNA passes down the direct father-to-son line. Every so often it picks up a tiny mutation—call it a breadcrumb. Scientists give each breadcrumb a name (a SNP ). If a group of men share the same SNP, they usually share a distant paternal ancestor. Our project follows one breadcrumb cluster in the Lennox: E-BY5775 . We put charters (land grants, witness lists, place-names) beside modern Big Y-700 results . Where both sets of evidence agree, we have a testable working theory . Where they disagree, we adjust. That’s “ DNA Over Deeds—But Not Without Charters...

  Isabail de Luss: The Fair Maid of Luss, Found at Last (Latin: Isabella de Luss) For centuries, she was remembered only as “the Fair Maid of Luss.” A shadow in the chronicles, a nameless heiress passed from one generation to the next. Today, thanks to the painstaking work of charter transcription and yDNA-supported genealogy, her name has finally emerged from the silence of Latin parchment. She is Isabail de Luss. Born about 1351, Isabail was the daughter and heiress of Godfrey de Luss, 6th of Luss. Her mother’s name remains unconfirmed, but the evidence suggests she belonged to the powerful Erskine or Hamilton families. At approximately 17 years old in 1368, Isabail was married to Robert de Colquhoun of Ilk, 5th of Colquhoun. Their union was sealed in a dowry charter, preserved in The Lennox Charters (Vol. I, published in 1869 by William Fraser). This singular document fixes the date of her marriage and confirms her name in black and white Latin ink. But the story deepens. ...

Our E-M35 Ancestor:  "The Clan MacArthur Heir Who Changed Everything” The DNA and History Behind the McCarter–Colquhoun Legacy In 1495, a man named John MacArthur of Tirivavich stepped forward to claim what was rightfully his — the leadership of Clan Arthur . He wasn’t just any claimant . He was described in charters as the “nephew” of the last formally recognized chief, Iain (John) MacArthur , executed by King James I of Scotland in 1428. For nearly 70 years, the MacArthur name — once one of the most powerful in Argyll — had been in exile from its own lands. The chief’s execution was a political earthquake, and his estates were seized by the Crown. But in the political chess game of the Scottish Highlands, power never stays buried for long. In 1495, a sliver of that lost birthright was restored when John of Tirivavich received charters returning him lands at Loch Awe . These weren’t the full MacArthur estates, but they were a foothold — and a statement. The DNA Proof: ...