Tartan Help - Probably way to much info, but now I gotta zero in on this option

[Steve Ashton]

Another way to look at this whole thing is -

It is not about what name you currently have. If you go back even 5 generations you would have 32 grandparents and 32 different names.

So you do your geanology. Follow the paper trail back to where your people come from in Scotland.

Clans were only in the NW part of Scotland. The vast majority of Scots lived in the cities in the Lowlands and were not part of the Clan system, did not have a Tartan and did not wear kilts.

A person could live anywhere and have any name. You could be 100% Scottish and not be part of a Clan.

So, do your research and find out where within Scotland your people come from. Then we can figure out what Tartan would be most appropriate.

Wearing Tartan tells the world - Who am I? Where do my people come from? What went into making me who I am today? Find a Tartan that answers those questions for you and you have found the most appropriate Tartan.

Today there are around 10,000-11,000 registered Tartans. There are Tartans for just about everything and every one. Yes, Tartans carry names - We have to call them something. But those names are not owned, you cannot have a "right" to wear a Tartan, and there is no 'wrong'.

The 'rules' about what Tartan you should or can wear are simple.

1) Pick a Tartan that has some meaning to you. It may carry your current surname-it may be from where your people are from-it may be affiliated with an organization or company you are part of. Heck the meaning can even be "I like the colors".

2) Know what Tartan you are wearing. Someone will ask.

3) Wear it with pride!

Yes, there are Tartan snobs out there, but there are no Tartan Cops.

[OC Richard]

It is not about what name you currently have. If you go back even 5 generations you would have 32 grandparents and 32 different names.

This topic has come up here on XMarks a number of times, and it's one of several topics on which I've noticed a dichotomy between Scots and USAians.

We here in the USA tend to look at our family as a whole, male and female lines, for tartans to wear, whereas Scots have often expressed the opinion that one's tartan must come from the direct male line.

I've found that ironic due to one of the few things known about the Picts is that they traced descent through the female line.

And here in the US southwest we are in constant contact with Hispanic culture in which one's last name includes several names from both the male and female lines. (And you have two birthdays every year, but that's another story.)

Wearing Tartan tells the world - Who am I? Where do my people come from?

Yes it can.

But a couple weekends ago at our region's largest Highland Games, while I was out wandering around the Games and doing my usual tartan-watching (the Games being by far the region's largest annual gathering of kiltwearers) I was noticing how often that wasn't the case.

Except in the Clan tent area the majority of kilts seen didn't indicate anything about a person's heritage, but were

1) pipe band issue kilts, which accounted for at least half of the total kilts seen on the grounds.

2) canvas kilts plain or camouflage such as Utilikilts and their ilk.

3) kilts in modern fashion tartans.

And I would be in those categories, wearing either my pipe band kilt or my Isle of Skye kilt (which is both a District Tartan and a wildly popular Fashion Tartan).

Were I to go with a family tartan it would probably be Cooper or Stewart, both from female lines, or Cavan or Cornwall, from other female lines. The only direct-male-line tartan would be Arran (which is scarce as hen's teeth) or the perhaps tenuous connexions between my last name (Cook) with clans Donald and Stewart.

[tripleblessed]

I've found that ironic due to one of the few things known about the Picts is that they traced descent through the female line.

I have also found amusement there. In digging out genealogy by reading through original Scottish records and court cases going back hundreds of years, I've seen more than a few references to matrilineal preference in certain clans. Also, in many cases titles and lands have been passed on through the mother's line. Not always as smooth a situation legally, and name change sometimes required, but done. While the Norman system did decree everything to the eldest son, and/or direct male descent, there were and are exceptions.

[figheadair]

This topic has come up here on XMarks a number of times, and it's one of several topics on which I've noticed a dichotomy between Scots and USAians.

We here in the USA tend to look at our family as a whole, male and female lines, for tartans to wear, whereas Scots have often expressed the opinion that one's tartan must come from the direct male line.

I've found that ironic due to one of the few things known about the Picts is that they traced descent through the female line.

That (Pictish matrilineal descent) is now discounted as a later myth. The recent BBC Podcast on the Picts is an interesting listen - link.

[OC Richard]

That (Pictish matrilineal descent) is now discounted as a later myth. The recent BBC Podcast on the Picts is an interesting listen - link.

Thanks for that, quite an interesting discussion!

But I heard nothing that changed my views.

Bede, writing in the early 700s, says

"... in all cases of doubt they (the Picts) should elect their kings from the female royal line rather than the male, and it is well known that the custom has been observed among the Picts to this day."

The fellow at that discussion throws out the baby with the bathwater, and in dismissing the Pictish creation myth (which Bede presents as such) he also dismisses something Bede clearly states is "well known" in his own time.

The speakers talk of "a more critical review" of the Pictish literature in the 1990s and this happens all the time amongst scholars, as the mass of opinion shifts back and forth over time. But Bede's statement seems clear enough: matrilineal succession was practiced, and widely known to be practiced, in his own time.

I have a book The Age Of The Picts published in 1995 so much later than the "traditional literature" mentioned. It has a chapter on the female royal line in which the author says, reviewing the Pictish king lists,

"With the exception of two of the last Pictish kings before Kenneth mac Alpin not one of these kings succeeded his father to the throne."

[tripleblessed]

Another way to look at this whole thing is -

It is not about what name you currently have. If you go back even 5 generations you would have 32 grandparents and 32 different names.

So you do your geanology. Follow the paper trail back to where your people come from in Scotland.

For some of us, it's a bit simpler, especially those whose folk came into the colonies and moved on into frontier
locales. Few choices for marriage; whoever was near and would have you, kin or no. My mother's grandparents
were first cousins, and were first cousins to my father's great grandfather. Plus, migration patterns had parallel
lines living near and marrying each other in three different colonies/states across the years. Back a few generations,
I have far fewer ancestors than the math would suggest. Some might say that explains the inanity/insanity you
see appearing here under my user name.

[OC Richard]

For some of us, it's a bit simpler, especially those whose folk came into the colonies and moved on into frontier locales. Few choices for marriage; whoever was near and would have you, kin or no. My mother's grandparents were first cousins, and were first cousins to my father's great grandfather.

My own family tree is full of that sort of thing, due to my family being the first European settlers in that part of Appalachia, and being joined later by a small number of other founding families.

They say "West Virginia: two million people, ten last names" and while that's an exaggeration what is true is that when you get out into the remote areas there will be only a few different last names in any small region, due to a small number of founding families and few incursions from outsiders over the last 200 years.

Thus my last name is Cook and in certain areas (around Oceana in particular) it seems like half the people are named Cook. In my family tree there was at least one marriage between a girl named Cook to a boy named Cook, and both mothers having the maiden name Cook, everyone descended from the 18th century settler John Cooke. Yet there were local laws against marrying people deemed too closely related, which seem to have been scrupulously followed.

[WillowEstate]

Yet there were local laws against marrying people deemed too closely related, which seem to have been scrupulously followed.

With good reason, I think. A late friend married his first cousin and the way genetics work (Google the pea experiment), he and his son had identical DNA. His daughter, younger, did not. He had a couple of charts, which certainly overlapped exactly but not being a biologist, I don't know what that meant. Mother nature works in curious ways.