In the course of trying to secure the site better from spammers and such, I’m trying out various login/registration and other security plugins. There appears to be a conflict between some of them, and you might for a while find that you have to try twice to login or register. I’ll try to fix this…
Author: Stanton McCandlish
I am the Cuindlis.org site administrator and presently its principal writer/researcher. Based in Oakland, California (though I spent my early childhood in the UK, and have also lived in five US states, as well as Ontario, Canada), I am an IT consultant, book author, and genealogist,
I've been doing a one-name study of Cuindlis-derived names like McCandlish, McCanless, and Conlisk since the 1990s.
I also designed the McCandlish tartans, back in 1992 (with consultation from one of the then-living tartan experts).
I have a degree in cultural anthropology and linguistics. I'm learning Scottish Gaelic and previously studied Irish Gaelic a bit, though am not fluent in either yet.
On the side, I'm also something of a tartan and Highland-dress scholar, and have amassed most of the quality material published on the subject, primarily for overhauling Wikipedia's coverage of the subject. I started with the article "Tartan", which I re-did from the ground up and will next be splitting into sub-articles.
Other family lines I'm researching including Skinner, Foster, Bomar, Ward, and Scott, though only particular lineages (not as broad one-name studies).
Alleged Conlisk/Cunliss/Quinlish Coat of Arms Debunked
A heraldic-products vendor, House of Names AKA Hall of Names (Swyrich Corp.), has been claiming for years that there is a coat of arms for Conlish, Quinlish, and related names (the same one for all of them). This claim seemed dubious, because no arms for any such name can be found in any reliable sources…
Etymological & Other Updates
Owing to the real wealth of Irish and Scottish Gaelic resources (including Old Irish) now available online, I have been able to complete the etymological research into the origins of both elements in the name. The History page has been significantly updated with this and other information (especially in footnotes 1 and 16, for those…
New Maps, Crest Badge
I’ve added some new maps to the History page, to help visualize the concentrations of McCandlish/McCandless/etc. people in south Scotland and their migration to the north of Ireland; and the concentration of Conlisk/Quinlish/etc. people in and around Connacht in west-central Ireland. Update (2023-08-22): Maps upgraded to higher resolution. Also added a crest-and-motto badge image and…
McCandlish Tartans Now Public Domain
After 30 years of asserting a copyright over them, I have released the McCandlish/McCandless tartans into the public domain (no longer copyrighted), as of 9 May 2023. The establishment of the Scottish Register of Tartans (SRT) – and the fact that the textile industry takes it seriously – obviates any further need to protect the…
Exciting News Everyone!
Just since the launch of this site less than a month ago, two important finds have come up: The first is a possible coat of arms specific to McCandless, though it is known so far only from a gravestone (of a currier named Thomas McCandless) as published here by Seamus Bellew, and has no colour…
At Long Last!
I’ve had this website in mind for about 20 years, and finally got around to it. While I used to have some pages up (at my work website in the 1990s) that covered a little of the material, this is the first time that there’s been a whole website devoted to the subject, including the…