Re: Tartan Question

[Father Bill]

Respectfully, don't get too hung up on it with DNA and all kinds of genealogical research. It's fun, but it can also be dangerous; you might find out something that's upsetting or disappointing for a number of reasons. In fact, I've been told that with current DNA testing an interesting statistic has emerged that throughout history in any given generation and any given year, somewhere close to 7% of folks didn't have the father that they thought they did. Mama... well generally that was known, but even in my own family and also that of my wife, one known case of a Mama in each wasn't whom people thought she was. Think of all of the people throughout history who have worn the bend sinister and you'll perhaps understand.

My own Scottish search is perhaps a case in point. My mother had always said her family were Saxons. If you had met my Mum you would have agreed - you know, blonde hair, blue eyes, peaches and cream, the whole works. Her surname however, actually turned out to be Norman ao I did some really simple research and when I traced it, indeed they had been in the county she claimed as her heritage in England for a century or so, but before that, nothing!

So I traced it further out of curiosity, and lo and behold, about half of the people of that surname had left the only other place in what is Great Britain where they had been previously found, about five years before they showed up where Mum said they were. It turned out that they had come from the traditional and historical territory of Clan Sinclair, and while they are not listed as an "official sept" (a concept that is really quite recent historically speaking) it must be remembered that the clan system was designed largely to recruit warriors and if you married in, you were in!

To suggest that in four centuries that the surname had been found in Caithness and the Orkneys, none of the male line from which I was apparently descended had ever married a local girl would be far beyond ludicrous. That being the case, the assumption that I was inevitably a clansman was only exceeded by the statement of our clan Chief Malcolm, who has written that if you share the goals and aims of the clan, of course you are a member.

It's enough for me and it's important to realize that this is my own perspective and I'm comfortable with it, but as my expert geneologist and historian friend said, "Bill, they didn't keep records of peasants and sadly, you qualify, but if you think with that history you're not a Sinclair, you're in la-la land," so I've thrown my lot in with the clan, consider myself a member, wear the tartan, and have been welcomed by all as a long-lost cousin... of indeterminate but never disputed lineage.

So relax. It's not as big a thing as some folks (and admittedly some clans and some clan chiefs) like to make it. In this day and age, anyone who honestly thinks they are utterly unrelated to any other given person is well deluded and self-deluded at that.

Enjoy and live a happy life with your own chosen delusions as I do.