Looking to find any relation to the names Mclean and Maclean?

If you are looking for your ancestors, then you will find in the normal course of research if your Mclean /Maclean line are the same people or not as it will show on records you research.........

From the sound of your question you seem to think there is only one family of people named Mclean /Maclean, but their are many and they will not all be realated to each other, so searching for a surname is not the way to find your personal ancestry and searching for a country of origin based solely on a surname never works, as when people took surnames it was a choice like given names still are now, so it is like saying everyone named John are related and they all came from one particular country which is clearly not true.............

If you want to know where your ancestry is from then you have to research it, prove it and then you will know where YOUR ancestors using this surname came from...........

They are the same name, spelled differently. That happens. I once found a legal document from the 1800's, from Arkansas, where the same man, on the same piece of paper, was spelled Matthews, Mathews, and Mathis.

If you do any research, use soundex or wild cards, because chances are your McLean/Maclean ancestors were recorded at least 4 ways; Mc and Mac, with a space and without:

McLean

Mc Lean

Maclean

Mac Lean

A wild card, which most genealogy search engines support, would be

M*Lean

From Surname Database: same name variations in spelling. Remember many of our ancestors were illiterate and had no idea how to spell their name so were at the mercy of what ever the clerk wrote down.

Last name: McLean

This notable surname, with spellings of MacLean, Maclean, MacLaine, McLean, Mccleane, McLane, and others, is widely recorded in Scotland and Ireland. It is a developed form of the Old Gaelic name "Mac gille Eoin", which translates as "the son of the devotee of (St) John", from "Mac", meaning son of, and "gille", literally translating as servant or follower", but used here in the transferred sense of devotee, and the saint's name "Eoin or Ian", the classic Gaelic form of John. John derives ultimately from the Hebrew Yochanan, meaing "Jehovah has favoured me (with a son)". In Gaelic manuscripts dated 1467, the surname is spelt as Gilleain, and in the M'Vurich manuscripts as "Giolla-eoin": In the modern spelling the l is now all that remains of the fused "gille". Early examples of the surname recording include John and Neil, the sons of Gilhon, who were mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland in 1326. Further early recordings include: Nigel M'Gillon, the custodian of the castle of Scragburgh in 1329, and Walter Malynne, the abbot of Glenluce, from 1517 to 1545. The Macleans connection with Ireland began with their employment by the MacDonnels of Ulster as gallowglasses or mercenary soldiers in the 16th Century. Notable bearers of the name were John Maclean, the son of the laird of Dowart, who was ennobled by Queen Christina of Sweden in 1649, Sir John Maclean (1811 - 1895), archaeologist, and keeper of ordnance records in the Tower of London, 1855 - 1861, and Sir Donald McLean, 1820 - 1877, the first minister and statesman of New Zealand. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Donald M'Gilhon, whose ship made a circuit of "le Mole" later called Mull, in 1327. This was during the reign of King Robert 1st of Scotland, known as "The Bruce", 1306 - 1329.

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