Ramsay Coat of Arms / Ramsay Family Crest
The Ramsays are an ancient family of Anglo-Norman origin. The Scottish Ramsays derive from Simund de Ramesie who went to Scotland from Huntingdonshire. The first of the name recorded in Scotland was Simon de Ramsay, who was granted lands in Lothian by David I He was the ancestor of the Ramsays of Dalhousie.
The names of many of the family appear in charters between that date and 1296 when that of William de Ramsay appears in the Ragman Roll. He later supported Robert the Bruce and signed the letter to the Pope asserting the independence of Scotland in 1320. During the next three centuries, the Ramsays were prominently engaged in the Border Wars, with raids into England.
The first people in Scotland to acquire fixed surnames were the nobles and great landowners, who called themselves, or were called by others, after the lands they possessed. Surnames originating in this way are known as territorial.
Formerly lords of baronies and regalities and farmers were inclined to magnify their importance and to sign letters and documents with the names of their baronies and farms instead of their Christian names and surnames. The abuse of this style of speech and writing was carried so far that an Act was passed in the Scots parliament in 1672 forbidding the practice and declaring that it was allowed only to noblemen and bishops to subscribe by their titles.
Alba, the country which became Scotland, was once shared by four races; the Picts who controlled most of the land north of the Central Belt; the Britons, who had their capital at Dumbarton and held sway over the south west, including modern Cumbria; the Angles, who were Germanic in origin and annexed much of the Eastern Borders in the seventh century, and the Scots. The latter came to Alba from the north of Ireland late in the 5th century to establish a colony in present day Argyll, which they named Dalriada, after their homeland.
The Latin name SCOTTI simply means a Gaelic speaker. Over the centuries, most people in Europe have accepted their surname as a fact of life, as irrevocable as an act of God. However much the individual may have liked or disliked the surname, they were stuck with it, and people rarely changed them by personal choice