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Shamelin is the Lewis nickname for my family and derives from the Gaelic word seumarlan, for chamberlain. The nicknames were used to differentiate families who shared a common surname. They were extremely important in Hebridean communities because of the limited number of surnames, as well as given names, available. There is a popular story in Huron Township about the Lewis settlement's first school master, Aeneas McCharles. Apparently there were so many Donald MacDonalds in Mr. McCharles class that he was forced to assign a different letter of the alphabet to each of them. Suffice to say he soon ran out of letters and had to devise a new system to identify the remainder. Interestingly enough the nicknames have survived in Huron Township, and are still in use today. Shamelin is a tip of the hat to my ancestors who first settled on the 6th Concession of Huron Township.