Galt is very precise in describing family relations in The Entail. Some dates are approximations, but all work within the chronology of the story.

The Walkinshaws

In the family tree on the following two pages, the first page shows the family's origins and ends with the children of Claud Walkinshaw and the Leddy (shaded in grey); the next, the following generations.

The only speculative part of the Walkinshaw family tree is the Leddy's cousin. The Leddy mentions her maltster cousin “Ringan Gilhaise,” who challenged Watty's competence with the objective of gaining the Plealands property. (Had he won the case, the best he could have hoped would have been to be appointed Watty's conservator and have control of the property; he would not have owned it.) This might just be Galt's joke, a means of bringing in the name of his next novel Ringan Gilhaize, but given the general care in constructing the family relationships we would suggest that the cousin in question would be named Ringan Gilhaise Hypel, a fitting name for the Presbyterian side of the Leddy's family. Although the word “cousin” can be applied to more distant relatives, if the maltster is claiming to be the family chief through male descent he would presumably be the son of a younger brother of Malachi Hypel, whose only child is Girzy, the Leddy.

THE WALKINSHAWS

The Highland Connection

A similar question of female roles in inheritance arises in the case of Gertrude Frazer, known in the novel as Mrs Eadie. The narrator introduces Mrs Eadie as “a Highland lady” of “scarcely less than illustrious birth” (224). It is implied that her father, executed after Culloden, was the clan chief, and thus she has been excluded from succeeding to this role both by the suppression of the Rebellion (as the narrator terms it) and by her gender. Ellen's father, Frazer of Glengael, is her cousin and her father's “heir-male” (231); most likely he is the son of her father’s younger brother, although again we acknowledge that the term “cousin” can also be used of more distant relatives. Mrs Eadie assists her cousin in bidding on the confiscated estate out of a sense of “clannish sentiments” (231). Mrs Eadie's assistance is important because she herself might lay claim to the estate, but since her own children are dead she chooses to accept her cousin as the clan chief. Ironically, James is able to claim the Walkinshaw entail as an heir-male, but he also appears to be expected to inherit Glengael through the female line, the property presumably falling to his wife Ellen.

Only included in this family tree as Mary's husband is “French Frazer,” the son of Mrs Eadie's former lover. He was born around 1760 since Mrs Eadie first encountered him when he was a teenager, but how he connects with the rest of the Frazers is unclear. We can only speculate that he is a distant relation since he is apparently not a potential heir to the property.