Which tartan for MacClive?

[creagdhubh]

That's absolutely correct, and even when you know where your ancestors emigrated from, it's just an educated guess because people moved around Scotland.

Case in point, I know I'm a MacDonald of Clanranald because my father told me and his father told him and all of our distant cousins know also etc... However, my ancestors came to Nova Scotia from the Isle of Lewis which is MacLeod of Lewis territory, not Clanranald territory. The Clanranald were centred around Caste Tioram, Arisaig, South Uist etc... so even though Lewis was controlled by the Lordship of the Isles long ago, it was never really Clanranald territory and the MacLeods had ascended to control it for quite some time before 1804.

My point is that if I just know I was a MacDonald from the Isle of Lewis and didn't have the Clanranald oral tradition, I likely would not have figured it out from those clues alone.

It's really tough to reconstruct it once the tradition is broken in a family. I'd hazard a guess that there are many people who saw there name on a sept list, bought a tartan and were off base about their actual family. Especially people with physically descriptive or occupational names which pop up everywhere. Add that to the fact that people can have the same surname but be coincidentally descended from different people with the same name.

That's exactly right, Nathan. Excellent points here, mate.