Re: Gilleland- where does it come from?
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In reply to:
Re: Gilleland- where does it come from?
10/31/99
I was working in the Haberdashery bar in Minneapolis and happened to notice a customer's camera bag which had the name, "GILLELAND" on it.I mentioned that his name was the same as mine and he told me this:
He was from Northern Ireland and that the name was Scots 'gillie'(which I checked) and meant a fishing net and that the clan settled in Northern Ireland along the coast and were fisher folk and hence the name 'from the land of the gilles'.The name took several forms: Gillieland, Gilleland, or Gilliland.He warned me that the name in Northern Ireland was very Orange and that I might have to be on my guard.
I was told that my branch came to the US in the 1830s and settled in Pennsylvania.My father's family moved to Oklahoma.