Sadly there isn’t one, as MacKinlay wasn’t a fully fledged clan/kindred by the usual metrics, instead being powerful followers of larger kin groups. As such, there were important MacKinlay septs of four larger clans, Buchanan for those east of Loch Lomond, MacFarlane for those north of Loch Lomond, Farquahrson for those in Aberdeenshire and the north east, and Stewart of Appin in the West Highlands.




The name emerged into the historical record in Glenlyon and Balquhidder. MacKinlay and MacKindlay both mean ‘son of Finlay’ and is sometimes Anglicised to Finlayson. In Gaelic it is rendered MacFhionnlaigh. Any instance of this name in Ireland seem to be from Scottish settlers to Ulster (see Black’s Surnames of Scotland).  


Sometimes you will see online a crest supposedly representing Mackinlay of an armed arm holding an olive branch with the motto ‘Not too much’ or its Latin rendering. These, however, are spurious and do not represent a clan MacFinlay. They belonged to a businessman with the surname in Edinburgh, Charles MacKindlay of Kynachan, which was recorded in Alexander Deuchar’s 1817 British Crests containing the Crests and Mottos of theFamilies of Great Britain and Ireland, which was then repeated in several heraldic books, including Thomas Robson’s 1830s The British Herald or Cabinet of Armorial Bearings of the nobility and Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland and Burke’s 1840s Encyclopaedia of Heraldy or General Armory of England Scotland and Ireland. In both publications another gentleman with the name Mackindlay had the crest of an eagle’s head and motto ‘spernit humum’. Neither represented or represents the MacKinlay sept or clan. 


MKP 5/7/2024