A Stout Family Primer

A Stout Family Primer

Version 1.13

Fair warning: This post is aimed rather exclusively at my extended family. Others probably will not find it of terribly much interest. Caveat lector.

Origins

Our genealogical journey began when a close relative of ours found himself in need of a mental project for the next seven years or so, and over that period produced an 8,000-person strong family tree—names, dates, locations, relations—and growing. This body of work is the raw material I’ve been sifting for the past few years, using history to flesh out the bones of the family tree. And I’ve learned a couple things along the way about amateur genealogy in general and Stouts in particular.

Fact and Fiction

America is a land of amnesia. We escape anxiety by shucking off the past; hence, the New World. But even those of us with some sense of family history must admit that genealogy is often more legend than ironclad fact. Personally, I’m okay with that. I don’t need 100% confirmation of any given ancestor. Even with excellent records, there’s no guarantee that someone’s purported father is their biological father. And once you get a dozen or so generations out, genetic crossover makes it possible that you don’t share much if any blood connection even to direct ancestors.

What’s important to me are the stories, where our family intertwines with the greater story of Western civilization. I want tales to pass along to my children and grandchildren. And boy, howdy, do we have plenty of those. Can I prove our direct lineage to the Norse-Gaelic hero Somerled? Not conclusively, no. Does that make the story any less enjoyable? Not from where I’m standing. Ever since he was little, I’ve told my son that some stories are true and some are made up, but the best are found somewhere in between.

We Are All Descended from Kings

Or so the Irish say. And it’s true. Somewhere in the shrouded past, we have all manner of social strata in our ancestry, high and low. But genealogy skews toward aristocracy, because throughout history the wealthy have had both means and motive to preserve (and when necessary, manufacture) their pedigree. We are the product of a million loves, most all of them quiet and anonymous. Only a handful have been written down.

Nature vs Nurture

Culture is thicker than blood. When my wife and I got married, we had distinct family narratives: her family was Norwegian, and mine—largely on my mother’s side—was German. I came from a German-speaking family, in an area of Pennsylvania that had been culturally German since the Revolution. Lo and behold, when we took genetic analyses, we received surprising results. Genetically speaking, my wife turns out to be more German than I am, and I more Norse than her. My background breaks down to roughly one-third Norse, one-third Gaelic (Irish and Scots), and one-third everything else: British, Iberian, Greco-Roman, Eastern and Western European.

This doesn’t mean that my wife didn’t have Norwegian ancestors and my mother didn’t have German ancestors. They did. But those Norwegians married Germans who learned to speak Norwegian, and those Pennsylvania Germans married Scots-Irish lads who settled in the Appalachians and Lehigh Valley, where they learned to speak German and married the daughters of German farmers. Blood and culture can be quite separate things. My wife still loves lefse, and I’m still a sucker for German food and beer.

The Name Itself

Surnames are a relatively late development in Western history. The Stout surname arose independently in England, Orkney, and the Continent. We can trace the family name patrilineally back to Andrew Stout (1501-1576) in Aberdeen, Scotland. Stout is a relatively rare surname in the United Kingdom, and the overwhelming majority of Stouts in the UK hail from the Orkney and Shetland islands. Andrew’s last name could conceivably have come either down from Orkney (of Old Norse origin) or up from England (of Old English or Old French origin). But Aberdeen records, along with genetic analyses of modern Stout descendants, both indicate that our family name is likely of English origin, quite possibly from Nottingham.

Coats of Arms

Coats of Arms are granted to individuals, not families, though they may be inherited. Several Coats of Arms have been associated with various branches of the Stout family. A common motto found on some is Sans Cum Rege—an odd sort of pidgin meaning something like, “With or Without Kings.” I like to think of it as, “We Get S— Done.”

Where to Begin?
As one can imagine, with 8,000 branches on the family tree, one could tell stories from almost any angle imaginable. In truth, it’s a matter of preference. I like to tell our family story beginning with two brothers-in-arms from more than a thousand years back, who conquered Norway and bequeathed to their descendants the entire region of the North Sea. This is the nexus off of which thousands of stories may spin. But before we get into that, let’s touch upon the first Stouts in the New World, for theirs is a worthy tale.

The First American Stout

Richard Stout (c. 1615-1705) was my ninth-great grandfather. He may have had some aristocratic ties in his tree—some claim, for instance, that his great-grandmother was Mary Scott, descended from the original Kings and Queens of Scotland—but any riches had played out generations ago. When his father refused to let him marry his sweetheart, Richard joined up with the Royal Navy, and when his stint on the sea wrapped up, the Dutch hired him to defend New Amsterdam against Indian attacks.

The Unkillable Dutch Girl

Meanwhile, Penelope Van Princips was shipwrecked on her voyage from the Netherlands to New Amsterdam. Indians attacked the survivors, killing most of them, and horribly maiming Penelope. Her skull was fractured, her right arm rendered useless, and then they disemboweled her. Pushing her guts back in, she crawled into a hollow tree eating sap for a week and waiting to die.

Eventually two Indians, an older man and a younger, came walking down the beach, and Penelope crawled out, hoping they would put her out of her misery. These were men of a different tribe, however, and while the younger wanted to kill her out of mercy, the elder knew that Penelope could be valuable. They took her back to their tribe in what would become New Jersey, and nursed her back to health. Eventually they returned her to the Dutch in New Amsterdam, where she married Richard Stout. She was 22, and he 40.

Using her connections with the tribe that had saved her life, Richard and Penelope became the first white settlers in modern New Jersey. They had 10 children to whom they would bequeath 1800 acres and a Baptist church. And by the time Penelope died at almost a full century of age, she had something like 150 living direct descendants. Poems, dramas, and histories have been written about Penelope’s amazing life. Historical markers and commemorative medallions chronicling her life are still around today. When Abraham Lincoln first ran for public office, the fact that he could claim to be the fifth-great-grandson of Penelope Stout was considered a real selling point.

For more on Penelope, click here, here, here, here, and here. I particularly like the poem.

America the Beautiful

There are plenty of other American Stout stories. George Clooney, for example, recently played George Stout in the movie Monuments Men. He was a cousin of ours. Most Stouts living in the United States will probably be related to us in some way, regardless of how the name is spelled. (It used to be Straught, back in the day.) We worked our way South and North, then out West to Iowa and beyond. But Stouts in Canada are likely of Orcadian descent, and while we do have family roots in Orkney, as will be made clear below, the Stouts of England and the Stouts of Orkney are not the same family name.

Mayflower Family

We do have an ancestor who came over to America on the Mayflower. In fact, he had first traveled to the New World in Jamestown, got shipwrecked in the Caribbean on the way back, and wrote an account of his nine months as a castaway. This book became the inspiration for Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He later traveled to Plymouth on the Mayflower not as a Saint but a Stranger. His name was Stephen Hopkins (my 12th-great-grandfather), and he’s notorious as a bit of a bad boy amongst the pilgrims. We’re descended from him through his daughter Constance. Now, as I understand it, nobody seriously denies that Constance was Stephen’s daughter, but because the official records were lost in a church fire, the Stouts cannot claim recognition as an official “Mayflower Family.” Even genealogy has its politics.

North Sea Sagas

There is no way to tell this tale briefly and at the same time do it justice, but I shall do my best. Let me say from the get-go that the fuller story may be found in the Icelandic Sagas, notably: (1) the Heimskringla, a collection of historical sagas regarding the old Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson, the same guy who wrote the Prose Edda; and (2) the Orkneyinga Saga, the story of the Norse Jarls (Earls) of Orkney, probably written by an Icelandic bishop. They’re both great, and the Penguin edition of the Orkneyinga Saga has an invaluable family chart in the back.

Fairhair

Harald Fairhair (c. 850-932) is remembered as the first King of Norway. According to legend, his ancestry included the Skjoldings, the Ynglings, and the Volsungs—which is to say, the mythical heroes of Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. Amongst these are Sigurd Fafnirsbane, the dragonslayer; Ragnar Lodbrok, history’s most infamous Viking; and House of King Hrothgar, from none other than Beowulf. Needless to say, the Norse gods Odin, Frey, and Thor were worked into the tapestry as well. Quite the supposed pedigree! And Harald would live up to his inheritance.

Back then, Norway was a series of petty kingdoms linked by the sea and separated by primordial forests and mountains. Harald fell in love with a noblewoman, Gyda, who spurred his affections. Why marry a petty king, she teased, when she could marry the king of a great united kingdom such as Denmark or Sweden? Harald thanked her for reminding him of his duty, and swore that he would neither cut his hair nor return to wed Gyda until he had conquered all of Norway. It took him 10 years, but he managed it. The great triple-sword monument to his final success stands in Hafrsfjord today. Check it out.

Rognvald the Mighty

Harald’s best friend in all this was Rognvald Eysteinson. Some sources say these two were brothers, others that they were brothers-in-law. It was Rognvald who first called Harald “Fairhair” after he completed his vow and cut off 10 years’ worth of hair. Harald made his friend Jarl (Earl) of More. Rognvald too has a mythical pedigree, supposedly going back to Odin and the ancient petty kings of Denmark. But I’m more interested in his sons, three in particular: Hrolf, Turf-Einar, and Hrollaug.

Hrollaug became one of the leading chiefs of Iceland. One-eyed Turf-Einar, of whom Rognvald was not terribly fond, was made Jarl of Orkney, a collection of islands north of mainland Scotland. Like Shetland, Man, and the Hebrides—all of which would become part of the Jarldom of Orkney at one point or another—these were islands scattered about Ireland and Scotland that were ruled by Norse jarls and petty kings, nominally under the suzerainty of the High King of Norway. Orkney would become a great power in its own right during the Middle Ages, situated as it was between Britain, Scandinavia, Ireland, and Iceland. (Turf-Einar, by the way, would later blood-eagle the jealous sons of Fairhair after they murdered his father Rognvald. Nasty way to die, if there’s any truth to it.)

As for Hrolf, well, he took the Vikings to new heights. The beleaguered Emperor of the Franks grew so weary of Viking raids, some straight into the heart of Paris, that he gave Hrolf and his fellow Vikings a great swathe of French land—the Dukedom of Normandy—on the condition that they keep other Vikings out. Hrolf was baptized, learned to command cavalry, and became known as Rollo the Wise. In time, his Norman descendants would rule kingdoms in England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Sicily, and the Holy Land. It would be Normans who made up the backbone of the Knights Templar.

I could tell a lot of stories about these three brothers, but suffice to say for now that two branches of the Stout family claim descent from Hrolf, Duke of Normandy, and Turf-Einar, Jarl of Orkney.

Unmistakably Orcadian

The Norse Jarls of Orkney were simultaneously vassals of the Scottish and Norwegian kings, holding land in fief from both. They also intermarried with the Scottish and Norwegian royal families. Sigurd the Stout, one of the three greatest Jarls of Orkney (you wouldn’t believe the stories I have about this guy), married a daughter of King Malcolm II of Scotland. Her ancestry can be traced back to Kenneth MacAlpin, First King of Picts and Scots. Sigurd’s son, Thorfinn the Mighty, married Ingibjorg Finnsdottir. Ingibjorg was the great-great-granddaughter of Harald Fairhair, tying the family to Norse royalty. (Her cousin, King Harald III Hardrada, is often known as “The Last Viking”; Harald’s half-brother, Olav the Stout, became King St Olav II.) Ingibjorg and Thorfinn had two sons, who ruled the Jarldom jointly.

Orkney is an amazing place. Plus they have delicious gins and scotches, and a beer named after one of our purported ancestors.

Macbeth!

After Thorfinn’s death, Ingibjorg remarried King Malcolm III Canmore of Scotland. For the record, Thorfinn, Malcolm, and Macbeth—you know, from Shakespeare?—were all cousins. (Nor are these the only Stout ancestors to show up in Shakespeare. Look up Sir Walter Blount in Henry VI, Part I.) And before I forget, there is another famous American who claimed descent from Jarl Thorfinn the Mighty: George Washington.

There is some debate as to whether Macolm’s first wife, Ingibjorg, was in fact Thorfinn’s widow, or whether she was instead a daughter of Thorfinn and Ingibjorg Finnsdottir (making her Ingibjorg Thorfinnsdottir). If the latter, that’s a second line that the Stouts can claim from the Jarls of Orkney. Furthermore, Malcolm had several children with his second wife, St Margaret of Scotland; we have at least two lines descending from this union as well. By one reckoning, St Margaret is my 31st-great-grandmother.

St Magnus

While Thorfinn’s sons got along in joint rule, his grandsons did not. Magnus Erlendson was treacherously murdered by his cousin Haakon Paulson, the details of which can be read in the Saga of St Magnus, amongst other sources. Magnus became the patron saint of Orkney, and a gorgeous cathedral—St Magnus, Light of the North—was constructed in his honor in Kirkwall. It contains the bones of St Magnus, as well as those of his nephew who erected the cathedral (also a Viking, Jarl, poet, and saint) and is a sight to behold. A pilgrimage route, St Magnus Way, tracing the path of his body when his relics were translated, recently opened.

Man, Oh, Man

Haakon Paulson, Magnus’ cousin and slayer, had a daughter, Ingibjorg Haakonsdottir, who married Olaf Gudrodarson, the King of Man. Olaf and Ingibjorg had a daughter, Ragnhild Olafsdottir, who married the famous Norse-Gaelic warrior and Scottish national hero Somerled MacGillebride. Somerled is a big deal. He was Thane of Argyll, King of Man, and Lord of the Isles. Several prominent Scottish Clans claim him as their paterfamilias. Somerled and Ragnhild had a daughter Agnes de Insula (or de l’Isle) who married an Anglo-Norman, Gilbert le Blount, the Fourth Baron of Ixworth. And it is to the Normans we shall turn next.

I should point out that there is some debate as to whether Agnes de Insula was one of Somerled’s daughters or not. Some claim yes, some no. We cannot settle the issue decisively, but I don’t particularly care, because the story is just too good not to tell. And according to our family tree, Somerled and Ragnhild were my 25th-great-grandparents.

Norman Invasion

When Hrolf and his Viking buddies settled in Normandy, they took as their wives French princesses descended from Charlemagne, whom the Pope crowned Emperor of the West on Christmas Day, A.D. 800. This gets us into the “Sceptered Isle,” the legendary genealogy of European royalty. Charlemagne supposedly claimed the family of Julius Caesar as his ancestors, and Caesar supposedly claimed the Emperors of Persia as some of his. If we were to take the Sceptered Isle seriously, the Stout family could stretch back to Xerxes and Darius in the Bible! But this is too deep a journey into legend even for me.

Due to some fascinating but rather involved political intrigue, Hrolf’s great-grandson William, Duke of Normandy, became William the Conqueror, King of England. A bunch of William’s Norman buddies got choice positions in the new regime, including the le Blount and de Bohun families. Both feature prominently in the Stout family tree.

Take, for example, Gottfried, son of the Danish King Harald Klak. Gottfried settled in France and married a Carolingian princess. His son, Sigfried the Dane, became First Count of Guines. It was Sigfried’s great-grandson, Robert “the Admiral” le Blount, who commanded the 10,000 Viking ships of William the Conqueror’s armada and thereby earned himself the Barony of Ixworth in England. Robert’s great-grandson, Gilbert le Blount, Fourth Baron of Ixworth, married Agnes de Insula. (Remember her from above, with Somerled and the Jarls of Orkney? Quite the family reunion!)

Plantagenets

Through the de Bohuns, the Stouts claim ancestry to the Norman Kings of England from William the Conqueror through John Lackland—Prince John of Robin Hood infamy—all the way down to a daughter of Edward the Longshanks (the villain from Braveheart). So for those keeping track, we’ve got the Kings of Scotland, Norway, England, and Man, as well as the Jarls of Orkney, Lords of the Isles, Emperors of the West, Barons of Ixworth, and Counts of Guines and Anjou. Why, the Plantagenets even claim descent from the Melusine, a mythical half-fairy noblewoman who appears on the Starbucks logo!

The Irish Connection

The biggest threat to Norman rule is usually other Normans. The Norman Kings of England had learned this the hard way, when the Kings of Scotland had invited Norman lords to settle farther north in Britain, leading to a rival Norman dynasty in Scotland. The Anglo-Normans kept their barons busy with the conquest of Wales, which occupied them for a time. But fresh opportunity soon knocked from across the Irish Sea.

Dermot MacMurrough was King of Leinster, one of the four provinces of Ireland. And he was having trouble with the Irish High King. Dethroned, MacMurrough came to Wales looking for help reclaiming Leinster, and in 1167 he found an eager ally in the Cambro-Norman lord Richard de Clare, Second Earl of Pembroke—better known as Strongbow. Strongbow drove a hard bargain, however; he demanded nothing less than the hand of MacMurrough’s daughter Aoife, and through her the kingship of Leinster. (“The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife” (1854) is an amazing painting. See above.)

The Normans came in like a wrecking ball, and might well have set up an independent Norman Kingdom of Ireland, had Henry II of England not nipped the problem in the bud by asserting his authority over Strongbow and the other Norman invaders. In time, the Normans who settled in Ireland would assimilate to Gaelic culture and become the “Old English,” hailed as more Irish than the Irish themselves. But the conflict with England would only grow.

High Kings and Crovans

Note that the Viking Norse living in Dublin around the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were of the Crovan dynasty, a Norse-Gaelic family who came over with Harald Hardrada in 1066, and who may or may not have been descended from Ragnar Lodbrok through his son, Ivar the Boneless. The Kings of Man, York, and Dublin were of the Crovan dynasty, and would be related to us through Somerled’s wife Ragnhild.

MacMurrough claimed descent from Brian Boru, the famed High King of Ireland who died—along with Sigurd the Stout and Brodir of Man—at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Through the de Bohuns, the Stouts can thus claim Brian Boru, MacMurrough, and Strongbow: one of the most beloved, and two of the most hated, men in Irish history.

A Taste of Things to Come

So that’s the family story, such as it is. It is American, Dutch, Scottish, English, Irish, Orcadian, Norman, Norse, Welsh, and French, just to name a few. It could be told from any of a thousand different branches; I have chosen the ones that most appeal to me. Ours is a wild and woolly family tree, full of kings and killers, princes and priests. I just recently found a 22nd-great-grandfather who served as advisor to Emperor Frederick II and was called “the Wizard.” What might his story be? I for one can’t wait to find out.

Climb the tree, explore the branches, have yourselves a good time. Check out the photo write-ups in my online album. It’s true that we are all descended from kings—and ultimately all related to one another in the greater human family. But it’s really something to read history with fresh eyes, knowing that our family touched the events recorded. Not to know one’s history is to be a leaf that doesn’t know it’s part of a tree.

Some Fun Dates to Remember
Burns Night, national poet of Scotland, January 25th
Up Helly Aa, Shetland Viking holiday, last Tuesday in January
St Magnus Day, patron of Orkney, April 16th
St Olav’s Day (Olsok), Perpetual King of Norway, July 29th
St Rognvald’s Day, Orcadian saint, August 20th
St Michael and All Angels (Mikkelmas), patron of Normandy, September 29th
International Stout Day, early November
St Margaret’s Day, November 16th
St Thorlak’s Day (Thorlaksmessa), patron of Iceland, December 23rd

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

—C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian