The surname Kyncade or Kincaid first appeared during the thirteenth century. According to John Cameron, author of The Parish of Campsie (1892), a certain family acquired what are generally regarded as the Kincaid lands in the year 1280, and this family then took their surname from the property. The lands are located north of Kirkintiloch, in the north-west angle formed by the River Kelvin and its tributary, the Glazert, and have varied in extent over the years.

According to a tradition recoded in Nisbet�s System of Heraldry, one of the Kincaids of Kincaid, for valiant service in recovering Edinburgh Castle from the English in the time of Edward I, was made constable of that castle, and his posterity enjoyed that office for many years, carrying the castle in their arms, in memory thereof. The story is notoriously difficult to verify, though one David Kincaid was certainly constable of Edinburgh castle in the year 1542.

Beyond this interesting association with Scotland�s capital, the Kincaids do not figure prominently in our history books, although we do come across some records of feuds abnd disputes with their Campsie Parish neighbors, the Lennoxes, the Stirlings and the McFarlans. From the Register of the Privy Council for 1571 comes the following extract, relating to John Lennox of Woodhead:

That quhairupoun the sevintene day of

September instant he being solitary at his

Prayers beside his dwelling place of Woodheid,

Belevit bot to have levit under Godis peax

and the Kingis; not theles the sonnes and

brethir of james Kincaid of that Ilk, upoun

sett purpois, cruellie invadit partes of his

body, to the effusioun of his blude in great

quantitie, and masterfullie and perforce

tuke him with thame to the place of Kincaid,

quhair thay detene him captive as yot, in

hie contemption of our Soverane Lord

and his auctoritie.

Some ten years later several members of the local Stirling family stood accused of the �crewall slauchter of vmqle Malcum Kincaid, sone to [James] Kincaid of that Ilk, to committit in June lastby past�.

Territorial disputes between the Kincaids and their neighbors continued to the nineteenth century.