As unusual a family name as any I've seen. I was reminded of fairy tales, elves, dwarves, and gingerbread when I first saw the 'fisherman's' name in reports of the controversy manufactured around the Elian boy.

Italian-American? Unlikely.

Here's what Thomas Babington Macaulay had to say about some historic Dalrymples. Note also a reference to a Lockhart in the footnote. I apologize for the following two paragraph format, but I reproduced the material just as I found it. Quoting from an editorial footnote from Macaulay's biography of Frederick the Great, I am pleased to introduce some of you to the "sunny uplands" of Lord Macaulay's prose:

Macaulay, Thomas Babington. The Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays and Poems. Vol. III, pp.474-6. New York: Hurst and Company, no publication date given, these volumes were printed probably within a few years of the author’s death.

The person by whose advice William appears to have been at this time chiefly guided as to Scotch politics, was a Scotchman of great abilities and attainments, Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, the founder of a family eminently distinguished at the bar, on the bench, in the senate, in diplomacy, in arms and in letters, but distinguished also by misfortunes and misdeeds which have furnished poets and novelists with materials for the darkest and most heartrending tales. Already Sir James had been in mourning for more than one strange and terrible death. One of his sons had died by poison. One of his daughters had poniarded her bridegroom on the wedding night. One of his grandsons had in boyish sport been slain by another. Savage libellers asserted, and some of the superstitious vulgar believed, that calamities so portentous were the consequences of some connection between the unhappy race and the powers of darkness. Sir James had a wry neck; and he was reproached with this misfortune as if it had been a crime, and was told that it marked him out as a man doomed to the gallows. His wife, a woman of great ability, art, and spirit, was popularly nicknamed the Witch of Endor. It was gravely said that she had cast fearful spells on those whom she hated, and that she had been seen in the likeness of a cat seated on the cloth of state by the side of the Lord High Commissioner. The man, however, over whose roof so many curses appeared to hang, did not, as far as we can now judge, fall short of that very low standard of morality which was generally attained by politicians of his age and nation. In force of mind and extent of knowledge he was superior to them all. In his youth he had borne arms: he had been a professor of philosophy: he had then studied law, and had become, by general acknowledgment, the greatest jurist that his country had produced. In the days of the Protectorate he had been a judge. After the Restoration, he had made his peace with the royal family, had sate in the Privy Council, and had presided with unrivalled ability in the Court of Session. He had doubtless borne a share in many unjustifiable acts; but there were limits which he never passed. He had a wonderful power of giving to any proposition which it suited him to maintain, a plausible aspect of legality and even of justice; and this power he frequently abused. But he was not, like many of those among whom he lived, impudently and unscrupulously servile. Shame or conscience generally restrained him from committing any bad action for which his rare ingenuity could not frame a specious defence: and he was seldom in his place at the council board when anything outrageously unjust or cruel was to be done. His moderation at length gave offence to the Court. He was deprived of his high office, and found himself in so disagreeable a situation that he retired to Holland. There he employed himself in correcting the great work on jurisprudence which has preserved his memory fresh down to our own time. In his banishment he tried to gain the favor of his fellow exiles, who naturally regarded him with suspicion. He protested, and perhaps with truth, that his hands were pure from the blood of the persecuted Covenanters. He made a high profession of religion, prayed much, and observed weekly days of fasting and humiliation. He even consented, after much hesitation, to assist with his advice and his credit the unfortunate enterprise of Argyle. When that enterprise had failed, a prosecution was instituted at Edinburgh against Dalrymple; and his estates would doubtless have been confiscated, had they not been saved by an artifice which subsequently became common among the politicians of Scotland. His eldest son and heir apparent, John, took the side of the government, supported the dispensing power, declared against the Test, and accepted the place of Lord Advocate, when Sir George Mackenzie , after holding out thorough ten years of foul drudgery, at length showed signs of flagging. The services of the younger Dalrymple were rewarded by a remission of the forfeiture which the offences of the elder had incurred. Those services indeed were not to be despised. For Sir John, though inferior to his father in depth and extent of legal learning, was no common man. His Knowledge was great and various: his parts were quick; and his eloquence was singularly ready and graceful. To sanctity he mad no pretensions. Indeed, Episcopalians and Presbyterians agreed in regarding him as little better than an atheist. During some months, Sir John at Edinburgh affected to condemn the disloyalty of his unhappy parent Sir James; and Sir James at Leyden told his Puritan friends how deeply he lamented the wicked compliances of his unhappy child, Sir John.

The Revolution came, and brought at large increase of wealth and honors to the house of Stair. The son promptly changed sides, and co-operated ably and zealously with the father. Sir James established himself in London, for the purpose of giving advice to William on Scotch affairs. Sir John’s post was in the Parliament House at Edinburgh. He was not likely to find any equal among the debaters there, and was prepared to exert all his powers against the dynasty which he had lately served.*

*As to the Dalrymples, see the Lord President’s own writings, and among them his Vindication of the Divine Perfections: Wodrow’s Analecta: Douglas’s Peerage; Lockhart’s Memoirs; the Satyre on the Familie of Stairs; the Satyric Lines upon the long-wished-for and timely Death of the Right Honorable Lady Stairs; Law’s Memorials; and the Hyndford Papers, written 1704-5 and printed with the Letters of Carstairs. Lockhart, though a mortal enemy of John Dalrymple, says, “There was non in the parliament capable to take up the cudgels with him.”