Talk:Clan Fraser: Difference between revisions

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This article will have content tonight. Please do not delete again. I simply add small bits at a time to make sure that things run as smoothly as possible. Thank you for your cooperation. Canaen 04:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed two other users suddenly start contributing to this article, most recently CambridgeBayWeather (and I notice your last name, as well). Be you Frasers? I inquire out of pure curiosity. It'd be nice to know whom else is editing an article I thought wouldn't get attention from anyone but myself. Canaen 02:07, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I am. My father was from Aberdeen. Are you a Fraser as well? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 02:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. My Grandmother Sime came from Dundee (relatives of the name still live there), and though I haven't gotten records past the 19th century, I've reason to suspect the family was forced to come into the city during the Clearances. Canaen 02:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've been reading on Southern California's [phttp://www.fraserclan-cal.net/ Clan Fraser Association site], and their webmaster seems to be very much of the opinion that Clan Fraser chifly refers to Clan Fraser of Lovat, and that the lowland Frasers of Saltoun have never really been a clan, particularly because Alexander Fraser of Philorth, Seventeenth Lord Saltoun stressed this. And the Lady Saltoun, apparently, wasn't made Chief of the whole Clan Fraser until 1984. Should we structure the article differently? IE, making the Lovat primary bit (as they have the most interesting/well-recorded history), with the Philorths having mention and another page? OR maybe this page being fairly limited, and much greater effore going into either specific page; Lovat and Philorth? Something Else?Canaen 00:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that this should be a general article about Fraser with a seperate Lovat and Philorth. The way I read the 17th Lords introduction is that this section "(meaning the Frasers of Philorth never belonged to the Highland Clan Fraser)" is correct but not that he is saying the Frasers of Philorth are not a clan, just not the Highland Clan Fraser. I would further suggest that as you are the main contributor to both articles that you do what you think is the best. Having looked at the history of the two pages I see that other than a few spelling and formatting you are the only real editor of the actual material. So go ahead. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very well. Thank you for your thoughts! Canaen 05:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat late but Cam is essentially correct. All Lyon did, and indeed all Lyon has the power to do, is recognise the chief of the name and undifferenced arms (not Clan) which is certainly Lady Saltoun as the heir in law of the elder brother holding that name. As to Clans, the Court of Session held in Maclean of Ardgour v. Maclean that Lyon has no jurisdiction to entertain a substantive declarator of chiefship of a Highland clan, or of chieftainship of a branch of a clan. [...] The question of chiefship of a Highland clan, or chieftainship of a branch of a clan, is not in itself, in my opinion, a matter which involves any interest which the law can recognise. So I see no issue with 'Clan Fraser' and 'Clan Fraser of Lovat' both being Fraser clans with differen 'Chiefs'. Alci12 18:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never heard about that case; you wouldn't happen to have an online source of it, would you? This could prove quite useful to me in some personal matters. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 06:41, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frasers are not Norman. We can approach this in a number of ways. Firstly, Lovat. The Lovats are a Gaelic, Highland Clan, and have nothing to do with the Normans. That means the majority of Frasers. The Philorths are lowlanders, yes. However, they are not Norman. Normans were Germanic; going back far enough to get to the continent, the early Frasers came from Celtic Gauls, still living around Anjou. Whether or not they came up with William (which is entirely indiscernable) they were not Norman. If you were to argue that they were Norman by association, then go ahead and put the Scoto-Norman Category on a new article, the Frasers of Philorth, not using the word Clan. Scoto-Norman Clan in itself is an oxymoron; if the Scots adapted Norman culture, they did not associate with Clans; they simply had families, and didn't follow the Clan system. I'm rather tired, and will resume this at a later date if need be. Canaen 11:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't hold any particular brief for the material on the Scoto-Norman clans article. It's material that someone else had added into what was definitely the wrong place on wikipedia. I moved it to a less wrong place, because I thought it was at least worth the discussion, and keeping unitl anything that could be factored out of it could be moved to other appropriate places.

But that said, it is historical fact that there were some foreign warlords who were planted into Highland areas in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as the Clan system was becoming established; and who became clan leaders for the individuals living in those areas at that time.

You can tell me whether that's plausible or not; but IMO it is certainly more plausible than an entire tribal family structure moving from Celtic Gaul to highland Scotland. The leader and his immediate family, quite possibly; but an entire clan of people, surely not.

Finally, insisting on anyone being Angevins rather than Normans in this context seems like quibbling of the first order. Surely not a distinction many people would have drawn in either 12th century England or Scotland. -- Jheald 17:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]

My main qualm about the labelling of this page is that it includes Clan Fraser of Lovat. Yes, the Philorths (Saltouns; lowlanders) could be considered a Scoto-Norman clan family, but the Lovats Gaelicised themselves upon acquiring lands in the highlands. When a seperate Philorth article is created, I will add the Scoto-Norman clan cat tag to it. Canaen 01:59, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've reconsidered this. The Philorths were never a Gaelicised Clan; Scoto-Norman family would be much more accurate. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 06:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The link for Simon Fraser born 1726 seems to go to a different General Simon Fraser. -- Beardo 19:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, I've fixed that now. The one born 1726 is now at General Simon Fraser of Lovat. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 03:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are two numberings - it seems the clan uses a different system to the actual legal peerage. This ought to be explained, I think. -- Beardo 19:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's a lot of confusion over the numbering. Basically, when people do use numbering in general speach, they refer to Lovat as the 18th Lord Lovat. But most Peerage researchers refer to him as the 16th Lord Lovat. There're a lot of issues to it, which I don't really want to get into just now. But if you're real curious, let me know, or you can try to look it up yourself, though I haven't found much online about it. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 03:02, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Twice now, someone's altered the section structure of the Jacobite risings.

Currently, it's like this:

Jacobite Risings

Dundee

Fifteen

Forty-Five

Culloden

Aftermath

But an anonymous IP keeps putting Culloden directly under the main section header. This is a small issue, but Culloden was the climax of the Forty-Five, and it makes sense that our section on it should be a part of the Forty-Five section. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 03:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.^[?]
• See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.^[?]
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• Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.^[?]
• There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
  • allege
  • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).^[?]
• Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
  • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
• As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2]^[?]
• Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 07:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The following was posted on my talk page. I've copied it here so as to compile various reviews of the article, and so I can turn it into a checklist. A great thanks goes to Ben Macdui for such a detailed and specific review. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 23:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC) Great article - you've done a lot of work on it.[reply]

• I had a quick look and amended the headings. WP:MOS is quite clear that unless they are a proper noun all but the first word should be lower case. Don't know why and I think it looks weird but there you go.
• Also, the <ref> mark should be placed without a space after the text. I've fixed a few and there are probably more.
• WP:CITE provides guidelines for the refs. They suggest e.g. Grant, Neil (1987) Scottish Clans and Tartans. New York. Crescent Books. There appears to be a bit of leeway on this and I doubt the form you use would be a big problem for a GA, although I suspect it would for FA.
• Ref 17's format is dodgy btw and there are stray quotes in 4, 18,19, 20 etc.
• It's all a bit footery but I don't make the rules. I am not an historian but the article is without question GA standard in my view. Whether its approaching FA I don't know, but a weakness is the lack of references more than the content I would have thought. (For example Origins is un-referenced, as is the poem composed at Auldearn (just noticed it's spelled wrongly in the article).
• For FA status just about every fact should have a ref.
• You should use the <ref name=> tag so that JR Harper is not displayed umpteen times. (See e.g. Mingulay for examples).
• I will come back and have another gander at the content asap. In the meantime the only things I noticed are that the Lead paras need attention and that Keith is in Moray not East Lothian - and the sentences there seem to be mixed up. User:AndyZ's amazing auto peer review is a great help on this sort of thing if you can get it to work. Ben MacDui (Talk) 11:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• A few more notes: 1253 'A copy of this charter may be found here'. Not sure why but I think this should be a footnote or a 'See also', not in the main text. It's possibly a matter of taste but there are too many red links for my liking.
• Clan wars: how were they 'Prevented from battle by the Earl of Argyll'? 'Robert was also a faithful friend of Mary' - redundant sentence? Black Aurther Forbes - sp?
• I know who Bonnie Dundee is but not all readers will and a brief phrase of introduction would be useful.
• 'The infamous Simon the Fox was also chief.' Why also?
• 'the Lovat estates were transferred, by entail' I don't know what this means, and I think it should be explained or have a link to somewhere that does this.
• 'When Simon the Pater's descendants first acquired the Lovat lands of the Ard' - who is he? Aird?
• 'There is, of course, some cross-over of opinions, Frasers tend to respect each other as fellow Frasers, regardless of where they come from.' Although this too is my experience its the sort of remark that is likely to get a {fact} tag.
• Distinguished Frasers - if you are sure they are all descendants of Clan Fraser, as opposed to their inferior Lowland cousins I think you should say so. (If they are not so descended they should be removed).
• Also, whilst I enjoyed the list I suspect that WP:MOS doesn't like lists. Well you did ask! Ben MacDui (Talk) 15:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Lists need to be converter to prose. Really, Really, Really.
• Article needs to be Copyedited. WP:1FAPQ

In the "New Homes" section, the first sentence has a link to Simon Fraser (d. 1306), mentioning his marriage. The second sentence mentions an event in 1253. I'm used to a history section being chronological. Since I have doubts that someone married before 1253 lived to 1306 (and was executed, rather than dying of old age), could someone else take a look at this? Are the sentences in the wrong order? Or is it possible that the link in the first sentence is wrong? It appears per this that there were two Simon Frasers of Oliver (one of "Oliver Castle", one of "Oliver and Neidpath"), and that makes it plausible that the first sentence really refers to the first of the two, rather than the second. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A large part of the problem here is that there have been a great number of "Simon Fraser"s. The Olive & Neidpath Simon is that which died in 1306. Unless we can figure out the given name of the Bissett heiress, it'll be impossible pretty much to figure out who married her from those Baronage Press links. Maybe the idea got corrupted from Sir Simon Fraser of Brotherton, third son of Andrew Fraser, Sheriff of Stirling, but I've yet to come across a source that spells out everything neatly. And that's saying something. Most of those early Simons get mixed together in the folk tales. User:Canaen/ClanFraserLineage is my attempt at clarifying the lineage, which I do believe to be pretty spiffy (besides the template problems at the bottom).

Perhaps the link should just be removed? It's awful hard to clarify it all, and the further in you get, the more confusing it gets. The best I could get outta the "Frasers of that Ilk" page is that the lands were granted by King Alexander to the eldest Simon Fraser of Olivercastle, and they passed down to his grandson, Simon Fraser of Oliver & Neidpath. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 06:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Going by Black's "Surnames of Scotland", the alleged French origin of the clan is dubious. The strawberries on their arms is an example of "canting heraldry", i.e. objects on the arms derived from the name rather than vice versa. PatGallacher 01:37, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the earlier stuff in the section about origins looks extremely hoary and should be hacked out. PatGallacher 01:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It may be, it may not be. What's known is that Frasers were in the lowlands in the 1100s, and they knew they were from France. They were in the Highlands in the 1200s, if not earlier, and they still knew they were from France. Or at least the chiefs, and other their close followers. Of course native Gaels interbred and joined, but that's not the point. Every Clan has dubious origins. That's just one of the things that happens.

Wikipedia's job is not to decide fact or fiction, but to report on what other, reliable, sources say is right or wrong. Everyone, yes, everyone, notes a connection with France in the origins of the clan. So we do here, as well, because that's what every reliable source says.

If you'd like to provide sources to your claims of dubious clan origins, and fit them neatly into the article alongside the other theories, that's just fine. Otherwise, that big fat banner on top is doing no good. Please do elaborate as to what Black says in his book (ie, why the he considers the French origins dubious, and what he offers as an alternative). I've not had the pleasure of reading it. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 03:27, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the factual accuracy of this article is actually pretty good. In fact it is a well written and well sourced article. Excellent! Psycotics1454

Pat, please explain, with sources, your argument as to why the accuracy of the whole of the Clan Fraser article is disputed. We have mentioned Black's book, even though it be a minor, minor, minor, anomaly. What more is there to mention? Your very thinking the article should say other things is not enough. Sources, Sources, Sources. File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 18:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Black's book is an important reference work, its comments should not be dismissed out of hand. Also, this isn't just a minor point about the name, it has implications of the origin of the clan. Also, even if they are of French origin, some of the stuff in this article about the early history seems highly implausible, and would be to most people with some knowledge of Scottish history, e.g. that they came as far back as Charlemagne, or that they are connected with a Gaulish tribe. PatGallacher 18:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What does Black give for the origin of the Fraser surname?

It would be incredibly helpful if anyone who is about to re-write a whole section, or make any other major change, would discuss it here first. The article is getting ever-closer to FA, and it's time to be careful. Thanks, File:Icons-flag-scotland.png Canæn File:Icons-flag-scotland.png 22:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]