Clan Macpherson

The name means 'son of the parson', and Wikipedia says the traditional progenitor is Muireach, or Murdo Cattanach, parson of Kingussie. The clan association is cautious: it says the genealogy before the seventeenth century is a best guess and partly supposition, that the Mhuirich connection cannot be proved, and that the clan and the Clan Chattan federation may have come from the west of Scotland, perhaps the Isles.

The earliest document the association cites is a Clan Chattan bond of union of 1609 that lists Andrew Macpherson of Cluny. Wikipedia reports the clan tradition that Robert the Bruce offered the chief Badenoch lands in 1309 if the Macphersons destroyed the Comyns, and presents it as tradition.

Wikipedia places the clan at the Battle of Invernahavon in 1370, against the Camerons, and says a dispute over the right wing led the Macphersons to leave the field before returning; the Clan Cameron association gives the date of that battle as 1370 or 1387. It places the clan at the North Inch of Perth in 1396 and says that in 1672 the Privy Council decided against Duncan Macpherson of Cluny's claim to lead the Chattan confederation, in favour of a Mackintosh.

In 1745 Wikipedia says Euan Macpherson of Cluny led the clan for the Jacobites, that he hid for nine years and fled to France in 1755, and that Cluny Castle was razed by the Duke of Cumberland. The museum says the chiefs have held Newton Castle in Blairgowrie since 1787.

Wikipedia adds that in 1594 the Macphersons, as vassals of Huntly, defended Ruthven Castle against Argyll's siege before the Battle of Glenlivet, and that about 300 Macphersons joined the raids on Atholl in March 1746 after the clan had fought at Clifton Moor. It dates the clan tradition of the Bruce offer to 1309. The association today is organised in nine regional branches, in Africa, Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Europe, New Zealand, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the United States and other locations, and its chief is its president.

No Macpherson tartan is held as a record on this site because the register threadcounts could not be read from an open primary source, and the sources read here do not describe a tartan.

The association does not use the word sept. It says the Macphersons have no septs and prefers the terms cousins or associated families, and its list was approved by the then chief, Sir William Macpherson of Cluny. The list has dozens of names and spellings. Eight are recorded here as uncertain links, on that list alone: Cattanach, Clunie, Gillies, Gow, Murdoch, MacVurich, Currie and Pearson. The page gives caveats, including that spellings were not standardised, that the Gow link rests on a traditional story and the name is an occupation found across Scotland, and that the Mhuirich link cannot be proved. Names such as Smith, which the page ties to the same Gow story, are not recorded.

The Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs says there are no strict rules on who may wear a tartan and that wearing a clan tartan signals allegiance to the chief. The association invites anyone with an associated surname, or an ancestor with one, to contact it, and says membership procedures vary by branch; that is an invitation to join and not a rule about tartan.

No Macpherson surname page is published on this site yet; it would need an independently sourced account of the name before it can pass the indexability gate. The associated families above are the association's own list, recorded as uncertain. A person named Murdoch or Gow is not shown by these sources to belong to the clan.