The name
MacKeane is a variant of MacIan, 'son of John'. The MacIans of Ardnamurchan, who
sometimes, wrongly, called themselves Johnstone, claimed descent from a son of Angus Mor,
Lord of the Isles in the fourteenth century. In the seventeenth century some of them
settled on the east coast and became prominent merchants in Elgin, where they called
themselves MacKeane. The MacIans of Glencoe, victims of the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692,
were a branch of the MacDonalds. |