Welcome to The McElrath Site!

This is a family site run by Bob McElrath, for my own use and the use of other McElrath's.  If your last name is McElrath, feel free to inquire about an email address like your_name@mcelrath.org or your_name@mcelrath.net!  (If there is enough interest I will make arrangements to host web pages like http://your_name.mcelrath.org/ as well)

I am a post-doctoral fellow in in theoretical particle physics at CERN. I earned by Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, before taking my first post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, Davis. I keep a personal site here also. SPIRES at the SLAC laboratory is the best place to find a list of my professional publications. I am an avid user and contributor to open source software, including the Debian project, linux, and a few projects of my own.  I am interested in all things related to space, and in particular going to Mars.

There are a few "famous" McElrath's out there with an internet presence (I don't know most of these people, but I know how to use Google).  I'm proud to have such accomplished people sharing my name (and maybe a little blood too!):

• Brian T. McElrath runs a Chocolatier in Minneapolis (yes you can order online)
• Someone named McElrath runs McElrath Trailers in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
• The Stuart McElrath Company is an engineering consulting firm specializing in foundries and computers.
  
• Mike McElrath runs a booking agency for hunting and fishing trips in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
• Steve McElrath is a photographer in Tacoma, WA.
• M. Juliana McElrath is working on an AIDS vaccine and is a profesor of medicine at the University of Washington.
• Katherine McElrath is a flutist with the Oakland East Bay Symphony and music school faculty at the Southern Oregon University.
• The Swingin' Medallions is a beach music, frat rock, R&B, and shaggin' music band out of Greenwood, South Carolina with several McElrath members including Jayne, John, Shawn, and Shane.
• Nakoa McElrath is a football player at Washington State University.
• Lori McElrath-Eislick is a children's book illustrator.
• Jean Sybil McElrath was an author, poet, and civic leader.
• Karen McElrath is a sociologist at Queen's University in Belfast who studies drug use, among other things.
• Ah Quon McElrath led an important dock strike in 1949.
• Joseph R. McElrath, Jr. is a professor of English at Florida State University.
• John McElrath is a photographer in Orange County.
• Paul McElrath is an attorney in Pittsburgh.
• Brian McElrath (my uncle) is a musician and paramedic in Jacksonville, FL.
• Patrick McElrath is a Army Ranger veteran of Operation Just Cause and software and web developer
• Your name could be here too!
  

The family name McElrath has a significant geneaology,  

• There is a geneaology forum for the name with several hundred messages, and a smaller one at ancestry.com.  This is where to look for long-lost relatives.
• We are members of the Clan MacDonald. Clan MacDonald is the most powerful of the clans. Their motto is "By sea and by land".
• My family hails from the Isle of Skye (Wikipedia article), which was ruled by the MacDonald clan from about 1476 to 1971, when the family decided to convert their castle Armadale unto a Museum now known as the Clan Donald Centre.
• Famine in the 18th century severely reduced the population on the Isle of Skye. Today there are less than 10,000 people living there.
• According to Ron Mackelwrath, a historian in Surrey England, The Gaelic spelling is Mac-Gille-Riabhaich, which means "son of the brindled lad" (I think "brindled" basically means freckled, I've also seen it defined as "grizzled" which refers to a mix of gray and black hair). You will see the middle word Gille also spelled Giolla and 'ille. Also "Mac", meaning "son of" is also spelled Mc, Mhic, Mick, Mack, and Mac. Riabhaich is also spelled Riabhaigh by some Irish with the same Gaelic name.
• One family is said to have held the office of hereditary bard to the MacDonalds of Sleat. (I believe this is the McElraths, but if you have more info please email me) Sleat is pronounced "slate" rather than "sleet". They have a tartan and a clan badge (on the right).
• There are other Mac-Gille-Riabhaichs from Islay, Kintyre and Jura.
• An interesting story about the Mac-Gille-Riabhaichs relates the name Darroch to Mac-Gille-Riabhaich. It is the third item on the page, under "The History of the Macdonalds".
• A bond of manrent (a written agreement whereby a free person becomes a follower of someone who could protect him, who would in turn undertake to support and maintain him) was signed between the M'Ilwraiths and the lord of the Isles at Castle Camus (Knock), Sleat, Skye on August 13 1632. Apparently this practice was banned in 1617, but continued illegally, especially during the civil wars of the 17th century.
• Sleat is a penninsula at the southern end of the Isle of Skye.
• There is a small lake Loch Mhic'ille Riabhaich(4th picture down), 12.5 Hectares. It is somewhere in the 10km square map NG98 on the Ordinance Survey (UK mapping agency) grid. It is roughly 20km west-southwest of Ullapool). This is on the Scottish mainland, not on the Isle of Skye.
• In Kilmuir, Skye, there is a place called Baile Mhic Ileriabhaich 'township of the Macgilleriabhachs.' (source)
• John Linsley McElrath has compiled a list of McElrath's who served in the Civil War.
• If you have any more interesting historical/geneaological information, I'd be interested to hear about it!

This site is dedicated to my grandmother, Lois Gebert (formerly Lois McElrath).