The Latin motto "Non
timeo sed caveo" means "Not fearful but wary."
The Strain name
appears to have originated in
In his book, More Irish Families, genealogist Dr. Edward MacLysaght claims that the Strain surname comes from O’Srutháin, the name of an Irish sept of Donegal mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters.
(O)Strahan, Strain,
Shryhane – There are two slightly different forms of this surname in Irish
– O’Sraitheáin and O’Srutháin, both as
Strahan and Strain (
The entry from the Annals of the Four Masters referred to by MacLysaght reads as follows:
Sitriucc Ua Sruithén airchindeach na
Congbhala, .i. cenn Ua Murtele & toiseach
Cloinne Snédhgile ar thotacht d'écc iar n-déigh-pendainn, & a
adhnacal isin tempall do-rónadh leis féin.
(Sitric
O'Sruithen, Erenagh of Conwal, i.e. head of the Hy-Murtele, and chief man
of all the Clann-Snedhgile for his worth, died, after exemplary penance, and
was interred in the church which he had himself founded.)
In Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall (Irish Names and Surnames, or Surnames of the Irish and the Foreigner), the Rev. Patrick Woulfe gives additional information about this sept and lists other variations of the name:
O
Sraitheáin, O Sruitheáin, O Srutháin – I - O Srahane, O Shrihane, O Sreighan, O
Shrean, O Streffen, Shryhane, Sruffaun, Strohane, Strahan, Straghan, Strachan,
Strain, Bywater, (Ryan); ‘des. Of Sruthán’ or ‘Sruitheán’ (dim. Of sruth an
elder, a sage, a man of letters); the name of an old Tirconnell family, the head
of which was chief of Clann Snedhgile, a sept of the Cinel Conaill, seated in
Glenswilly to the west of Letterkenny, and also erenagh of Conwall in the same
district. Some of the family had come
southward before the end of the 16th Century, probably as followers
of the MacSweenys, and settled in Co. Cork where the name is still extant, but
often ‘translated’ Bywater, as if from ‘sruthán’ a streamlet. In
Of the 121 Strain households represented in the
property survey of
It is almost beyond doubt, however, that the Strains of Donegal were descendants of the O Sruithain family mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters. The Hearth Money Roll of Conwall parish from 1665 includes the household of one Roory O’Strean—a name that hardly fits a Scottish settler—and a breakdown of the Donegal civil parish survey (1857) shows that almost all of the Strain households were in Conwall or adjacent parishes while none were found in the southwestern half of Donegal.
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Copyright 2003, Ireland.com
Other genealogists, however, have noted the similarity to the Scottish name Strachan and suggested that some with the Strain surname may be Scottish in origin, as shown in this entry from the Ireland.com website:
SURNAME DICTIONARY/ SLOINNTE NA h-EIREANN |
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Strain |
numerous:
mainly Down and |
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Strachan |
rare: |
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Straghan |
fairly
rare: |
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Strahan |
rare: |
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Copyright 2003, Ireland.com
Additional support for Scottish roots comes from Charles Hanna, who in his
two-volume work The Scotch Irish, cites the Declaration by the
Commissioners for the Settling and Securing the Province of
Finally, during the Scotch-Irish migrations of 1707-1775 many Strains came
to the American colonies from
So there is strong evidence that some Strains descended from an Irish clan
in Donegal and equally compelling evidence that some came to
One thing that the Strain DNA Project has revealed is that many of the
Strains, both Catholic and Presbyterian, belong to haplogroup R1b1b2a5
(formerly R1b1c7), a haplogroup found most frequently in northwestern
For more information on the “Niall of the Nine Hostages” DNA signature, see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/01/0120_060120_irish_men.html
There is third possible origin as well. Several Strains participating in the study related a family legend claiming that they descended from Huguenots who settled in Ireland after fleeing religious persecution in France.