Distant Scottish Connections - how to honour it?

[Karl R]

As I understand it, women normally don't wear the tartan attire in comparison to men in Scotland. Do more women wear this in North America?

If you're comparing women in North America to men in North America, I'm going to have to put it at about equal. Men normally don't wear tartan attire. Women don't normally wear tartan attire. There are rare exceptions (Scottish festivals, Burns suppers, Renaissance festivals) where a number of men and women are wearing tartan attire.

Are you trying to blend in, or stand out? If you're trying to blend in, don't wear tartan. When I'm wearing a kilt, I'm expecting to stand out. You would probably stand out less than I do, because very, very few people would recognize the difference between a kilted skirt and a more normal plaid skirt.

The internal dialogue that I have been having with myself is that I am just not that close enough in Scottish ancestry to consider wearing tartan, even though I would love to. I know this may seem like a silly question, but typically, if you don't carry a Scottish name, what is generational limit of distance for wearing it?

There are some members of the forum who wear tartan kilts even though they are absolutely certain that they have zero Scottish heritage. When my wife gave me my first kilt, I wasn't certain whether or not I had any Scottish ancestry.

My surname is German, not Scottish. When someone sees me in a kilt and asks me, "Are you Scottish?" they have been perfectly satisfied with the answer "Part Scottish." Not one of them wanted me to explain to them how Scottish I was. I generally got the impression that they did not want to listen to me talk about my ancestry in great detail.

There are no guidelines that we can give you. This is entirely about what you feel comfortable with (or what you're willing to wear while feeling uncomfortable about it).