James, Very interesting. Good work. But I still like the American version; When it came
time for pensions to be paid. Ketterning's became Catron's. The enrollment logs
had written Catron because it sounded "Ketterning" to them. To this day,
I've heard so many sounded - Hey you, works for me. Your point is well taken. Several
things which could support your position: An Adam Ketterning might have been in America
before 1763. One Elizabeth Ketterning married a 'supposed' out of line Ketterning.
Michael, the stocking weaver, had learned his trade some where?
-----Original Message-----
From: james catron via <catron(a)rootsweb.com>
To: CATRON <CATRON(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Fri, Jul 3, 2015 8:46 pm
Subject: [CATRON] CATRON MYSTERY SOLVED
James W. Catron, J.D.
June 10, 2015
I have solved the riddle of the origin of
our surname. I have a degree
in history and was elected by my professors to Phi
Alpha Theta, the
international history honorary society in 1970. Being bent
toward
history, I had long puzzled over the mystery of the Scottish Loch
Katrine, the English village of Kettering, the French, Spanish,
Portuguese,
Irish, and Scottish surname of Catron, the Italian Catrone,
the Welsh Cadryn,
Livy's Alpine Ceutrone tribe of Celts who attacked
Hannibal's elephants, the
Latin word cateranos, and the Bavarian
surnames Ketrin, Ketring, Kettering and
Kettenring.
I realized that the only thing those countries have in common in
this
matter is that each was a Celtic nation before the Roman conquests. The
similarities and antiquity of these names led me to believe that they
are of
Celtic origin. A clue came from the
Compact Edition of the Oxford Dictionary of
the English Language (1971)
definition of "cateran."
Cateran. Forms:
katherinck, katharin, catherein,
kettrin, kaitrine, catheran, katheran,
cateran.
(Lowland Scots catherein, kettrin, appears to represent
Gaelic
ceathairne collective 'peasantry', whence
ceathairneach 'sturdy fellow'
(McAlpine); Cormac
has Irish ceithern, which O' Donovan renders 'band
of
soldiers', thence ceithernach 'one of a band'.
The th has long been mute in
Celtic, and the Irish
ceithern is phonetically represented by English
Kern. It
is not easy to account for the preservation
of the dental in Lowland Scots,
unless perhaps
through the intermediation of medieval Irish as
in Bowers'
cateranos. Stokes refers ceithern to
Old Irish keitern, Old Celtic keterna, a
feminine
a-stem.
1. a. prop. a collective sb. Common people of
the Highlands in
a troop or band, fighting men.
Hence b. One of a Highland band; a Highland
irregular
fighting man, reiver, or marauder.
1371-90 Statutes 12 Robert II
(James) Of Ketharines
or Sorneris. They quha travells as ketharans etand
the
cuntrie and takand their gudis be force and
violence.
1430 Bower, Comin. Fordus
1396, (James) Per duos
pestiferos cateranos et eoram sequaces.
1505 Dunbar, Sir
T. Norvay 13, Full many catherein
he heist amang thai dully glennis.
15--
Scottish Field in Furniv. Percy Folio I. 219
There came at his commandement
Ketherinckes full
many from Orkney that isle.
1768 Ross, Helenore 120 (James)
Ask yon highland
kettrin what they mean.
1816 Scott. Old Mort. vi, Grahame of
Montrose and his Highland caterans.
1832 Blackw. Mag. 65/2, These overgrown
proprietors
with their armies of catherans.
1887 Dr. Argyll, Scotland as It Was
II, 6, Plundering
Caterans always ready to flock to those who
promised
booty.
Brigand, freebooter, marauder.
1870 Lowell, Study Wind, 216,
The statecraft of an
Ithacan cateran.
1880 Mrq. Salisbury in Manch. Guard. 17
Oct. They (the Montenegrins) are
caterans, cattle-lifters.
Not surprisingly,
MacFarlane's Gaelic Dictionary’s definitions are more
helpful than the
Oxford’s. “Ceathairne means yeomanry, men fit for
warfare. Ceatharn is a troop
or company of soldiers.” The word is still
used in Gaelic to mean the Wild
Geese, those Irish and Scottish
mercenaries who fought so many of Europe’s
wars.More interestingly,
ceatharnas means heroism. Ceatharn or cateran or
ketring meant HERO to
the Celts and MARAUDER to their enemies.
Ketrin,
Ketring, Kettering, and Kettenring are nonsensical words in
German. Some,
including Henry Hardy Catron, have speculated that
Kettenring means chainlink
or chainring, but this is not so.
Maschendraht is the German for chainlink, and
kettenblatt is chainring.
The original Ketrin hansa is a farrier’s guild
trademark engraved on a
beer stein in a museum in Germany. It has no chain on
it. Henry Hardy
Catron added that artistic touch himself.
When the Kettenring
family emigrated to America in the 1760's, they
settled in Virginia and lived
among the Scots-Irish Celts of Southwest
Virginia. Several served in the
Virginia militia in Lord Dunsmore’s War
on the Shawnees and their paymaster
transmuted their Germanized name
Kettenring back to the Celtic Catron.
I
realize that many Catrons cherish the hansa; however, the name is far
more
ancient and noble than the 1730 trademark of a farrier named Ketrin.
Two
centuries after the event, Livy, in his History of Rome, wrote of
the Celtic
Ceutroni killing many of Hannibal's men and war elephants in
the Alps in 218
B.C. Some historians believe they were indigenous to
Savoy and attacked when
Hannibal's quartermasters failed to pay for
provisions bought from themOthers
say the Ceutroni were soldiers in the
army Hannibal had recruited in Catalonia
who revolted when their pay was
shorted.
_http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&s..._
According
to this dictionary, Catalonia means place of the warlords. The
consonantal
shift of L to R is common in the evolution of many
languages, dialects, and
words. In fact, Catralunya and Catalunya are
the Catralan or Catalan variants
of the Spanish Catalonia.
Furthermore, the Catron family’s Y DNA is R-SRY2627,
a rare one found in
its highest concentration in Catalonia and thinly spread
over Europe by
Catalan men recruited into Hannibal's Carthaginian army and into
the
Roman Legions for centuries.
I trust you greet this information with the
same pride in our Celtic
catralan warrior-hero ancestors that I do.
JAMES W.
CATRON, J.D.
james.catron.us(a)member.mensa.org
<mailto://james.catron.us@member.mensa.org>
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