Allowed tartans

[An t-Ileach]

Take the McKelvies (my mother's family). The eponymus is Selbach mac Fherchair Fota, of the Cenel Loarnd and High King of Dalriada and centred on Islay. Globally, there are actually quite few of them, maybe a couple of thousand families, which implies that demographically they probably do actually descend from the one patronymus.

Collins's handbook (the only one to list them at all) lists them as Campbells, on two grounds - that Islay in recent times has been owned by the Campbells of Cawdor (and for that matter in really, really recent times mostly by Bruno Schroder, the banker) and that there are McKelvies to be found in the Glassary. So that means Campbell of Cawdor is a possible tartan.

But, Islay was part of the Lordship of the Isles (in fact it was the centre of it) that was seized by nefarious means by the Stuart king James VI from Angus Macdonald in the 1590s and then given to Campbell of Cawdor in 1614. The Exchequer Rolls for Scotland for 1514 (when it was still part of the Lordship of the Isles) list nearly all the land around Loch Finlaggan down to what is now Bridgend and up to what is now Port Askaig as being farmed by MacKelvies. So, that means MacDonald of the Isles, as well. And the Loch Finlaggan Area tartan (it's OK - I asked the owner of the Islay Woollen Mill).

And through marriage, the Earls of Ross had a claim on the island too. So that adds Ross to the possibilities.

The Campbells put off as many of the MacDonalds as they could over the 150 years or so after 1614: this stimulated migrations to Kintyre (Clan Donald country), Arran (Hamilton), parts of Galloway (Douglas) - and, as said, to the Glassary (Campbell).

There had been earlier movements to Ulster and down the coast towards Dublin and Cork. So there are Irish MacKelvies (who usually spell the name MacKelvey) too. That means, certainly, the Antrim Area tartan as well as others.

Then there are the (quite close) kinsmen and women who left for the Carolinas and Manitoba ('left' in this sense is a bit of a euphemism); and also Nova Scotia, Australia, and South Island New Zealand (we're still in quite frequent contact with the Kiwis). Lots of tartan possibilities there.

And many of her (my mother's) uncles, and so on, served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders - so add the Government Tartan as well.

A lot of options... Which to choose.

As my mother's immediate family came from the Margasdale area of Kintyre (as well as going back and forth to Islay, where my grandfather was born) - I suggested sticking to the simplest option and going for MacDonald.

And then, of course, there's the MacEachearns of Islay...