Alleged Arms and Wills of Akins of That Ilk 1669-Date

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Steven Akins 'of That Ilk'

Part 1: Arms | Part 2: Wills

In or about the year 2000, one Steven Akins of Alabama advanced via the Internet a claim to be Chief of the long neglected Akins Clan of Scotland, going by the title 'Akins of That Ilk'. Akins had no official recognition from Lord Lyon or any other source, and his claim met with general derision, combined with anger at his frequently expressed racist views. Controversy raged on discussion groups such as soc.culture.scottish, alt.scottish.clans and rec.heraldry, and a Google Groups search returns a figure of over 10,000 hits. Akins's controversial claim to Chiefship was publicised principally on the Clan Akins site at http://www.angelfire.com/al2/akinsclanwebsite/crest.html, but these pages were removed by the service provider due to 'violation of terms of service'. In 2001 Steven also ran into a spot of marital difficulties, and his wife Julie left him claiming that he had fabricated documents and tombstone inscriptions. After a period of silence, Akins renewed his claim to chiefship in March 2004 on a new website http://www.geocities.com/the_clan_akins/

A feature of Akins's campaign has been the sheer volume of images of sources he has provided to back his claim. Alas, on close examination these prove to be highly questionable. Consider for example the following remarkable series of illustrations of coats of arms put forwards by Akins, which, it has been claimed, prove that he is a genuine Scottish Chief:

 

Gravestone of Alexander Akins, died 1669, said to be 'near Baltimore,
Maryland', exact location not specified

 

Gravestone of Archibald Akins, died 1768, said to be located
in Bethel Presbyterian Cemetery, Harford County, Maryland

 

Gravestone of Thomas Akins, died 1785, said to be located
in Steele Creek Presbyterian Cemetery, North Carolina

 

Current arms of Steven Akins of Jasper, Alabama,
styled Akins of That Ilk, Chief of His Clan

 

If the arms portrayed above are authentic, they would provide a remarkable record of usage of apparently otherwise unrecorded arms over a period of 332 years. Unfortunately, the exact location of the 1669 gravestone is not specified, and the location of the 1768 gravestone is uncertain. While it appears reasonably certain that the 1785 memorial is located at Steele Creek, North Carolina, analysis of other armorial gravestones in this cemetery on the newsgroup rec.heraldry indicates that the arms are either assumed or the imaginative work of the Bigham family of headstone carvers. The inscription on the 1669 memorial reads: 'Here lyeth the body of Alexander Akins of that Ilk who was born in Glasgow Scotland and died September ye 7th 1669 aged 51'. Steven Akins displays a remarkable disinterest in establishing the exact location of this memorial, stating that he has never visited the site, and adding, 'The photograph was made for me by a relative who knew where he was buried, but I don't know if it has a specific address' (e-mail 13 April 2001).

Several have raised the possibility that the gravestones portrayed could either be fabricated and then photographed in a cemetery setting, or else created using the digital manipulation facilities provided by programs such as PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro. Just to show how digital manipulation can work, Nigel J Carron has altered the second gravestone above to create an entirely fake memorial for an 'ancestor':

Warning: this may be a double fake gravestone!

 

So far not so good, but let us now continue on to examine alleged Akins wills in Part 2.

Sean Murphy, Irish Chiefs
Last revised 23 April 2004