I recently began researching the Irish family surnames in my history, one of which is “McGettrick”.  The information I have obtained about this name todate is that the surname is almost exclusively a County Sligo variation of the Ulster Province surname of MacKittrick, which, itself, has a number of variant spellings.  Further research led me to the internet site for electricscotland.com, where I learned that “Mackittrick” is one of the septs of Clan Maxwell, and that one of the families associated with the Clan is MacGettrick.  It also appears that all of the variant spellings of these family names have the same source, the Viking name “Sitric”. My father always referred to the McGettricks as the “Scots-Irish”.  In light of the similarity of the Sligo Irish McGettrick to the Clan Maxwell associated family name of MacGettrick, would the McGettricks of County Sligo also be a family associated with the Clan, and does anyone have any suggestions how I might be able to establish that they are an associated family?  Further, when a family is “associated” with a Clan, does that mean that the family is a part of the Clan, with respect to the wearing of the Tartan and Clan badges, etc.? Thanks for any help on this. Robby