The Origins of the Scottish Surname Hope.
and Notes on Some Older Families of that Name.
At the outset I must stress that I am an amateur and not a professional historian or genealogist. What follows has been gleaned from many sources leavened with my own take on these sources and my own research. Dates on the following pages are in the format dd-mm-yyyy. The following chart shows how I believe that the Surname Hope came to Scotland and how it dispersed. This shows the general drift but there would also have been much to and fro movement.
The Hopes in Scotland can be divided into two separate groups although this may seem a bit simplistic I do believe that there was a core of Hopes in Edinburgh (Edinburgh Hopes) and a core of Hopes in the Borders (Border Hopes) that had very little commonality apart from their name that probably came from totally different derivations. The records of the Border Hopes predate those of the Edinburgh Hopes by 200 years. The two groups gradually merging into one armigerous Scottish family with a Clan Chief - the Clan Chief being descended from the Edinburgh Hopes.
I have divided my research into eleven sections which can be accessed individually from the Contents List on this page. At the end of each section there is an option to continue to the next section directly or return to this page and select another section.
Contents. Click on section below.
1) Introduction - Derivation of the Surname Hope.
2) Edinburgh (Scotland) Hopes. Merchants, Craighall Clan Chief, Hopetoun etc.
4) North Wales - Hopes of Broughton, Mouats, Gordon-Hope. Flintshire.
7) Irish Hopes - Ulster, Co Monaughan, Westmeath.
8) Hope Early Colonial Settlers.- America, Jamaica, Barbados.
9) Hope Family Heraldry.- Scottish, English, Irish and Dutch.
Appendix 1. Extracts from the Edinburgh Apprentice Rolls.
Although I am concentrating on the Scottish Hopes there were obviously people with that surname elsewhere in the UK and also in Ireland. Interesting maps showing the spread of the surname in the UK can be found at the Surname Profiling site operated by the National Trust (England) www.spatial-literacy.org/UCLnames. These maps show the name straddling the Scottish/English Border spreading north to Edinburgh through East Lothian and also south to Cumbria.
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