Fun with Geneology!

[Zardoz]

Here's a good one;
My wife's maiden name is Thompson. After I started getting involved in all this kilt and tartan business, she and a anthopologist friend of ours did a little digging in her family history and figured out that indeed they could trace her family line back to Scotland, Thompson being a sept of MacTavish and Campbell etc. So she started wearing some Thompson tartans and crests around to celtic stuff, so far so good.

But then we figured out her dad was adopted! After more research, and a lot of fees to get records unsealed, we found that her father's birth mother's name was Brown, and although grandma Brown had passed, my wife has a bunch of new aunts and uncles and cousins around Abilene! The blood grampa was harder to track down, but we did and apparently he got around a bit, had a couple other illegitimate kids besides my wife's dad! Oh well!

So... we where able to trace the Browns back to Scotland too, as a sept of Clan Lamont, So now she has a couple more tartans to choose from! Here's what I find kind of funny; if you look at clan history, the Lamonts and the Campbells were not friendly at all, and where on opposite sides of just about every conflict you could find! I told her wear whatever tartan you want, just don't put that Campbell badge on the Lamont or Brown tartan!

She's also related to the Stuarts on her mothers' side, but thats another story!

[James MacMillan]

We Scots moved around so much, and bred with so many that you can still pick any tartan that you like.

If you must have a clan - pick one with a tartan that you like, and make a silent oath of fielty................ Who's to know?

[Jock Scot]

As has been said many times before ,wear any tartan you like,its even better if you can find a family conection ,but as a matter of courtesy it is better not to mix cap badge "A "with tartan "B".

[arrogcow]

Have you actually traced back to Scotland? My mother's maiden name is also Thompson, but all lines point to them being Welsh.

Adam

[slohairt]

That is an interesting story!

I must say, though, I don't put much stock in blood. Family is who raises you and makes you who you are. I suspect most people could find an adopted ancestor in their family tree if such records were kept a long time ago. In the case of clans, adoption and fostering were very common and honoured institutions.

[davedove]

Have you actually traced back to Scotland? My mother's maiden name is also Thompson, but all lines point to them being Welsh.

Adam

Well, since Thompson could easily derive from "Tom's Son", that name could have come from lot's of places.

[Cawdorian]

the Lamonts and the Campbells were not friendly at all,

Being of Lamont, Campbell and Brown descent, I just couldn't resist on commenting on this one.

My Lamont ancestor married a Campbell Lady. My wife is a lassie of Clan McDonald, she married me in spite of my Campbell blood. I will say that most of us Campbells have mellowed out a bit over the last few hundred years.

[cessna152towser]

Yes, genealogy can be very interesting and one of the wonders of modern technology is the search engine; even compared to five years ago we can fairly quickly obtain information going back several generations on the home computer, which would have previously taken a very long time to find (if it could be found at all) by picking through manual records in numerous different public offices. I'm 75% lowland Scot from Paisley and 25% Irish, so hadn't really expected to find any of the highland clan names occurring in my ancestry. There was a clue though, in that my father had an aunt who was called Isabella McKenzie Cunningham. Turned out she was named after her grandmother Isabella McKenzie, the daughter of a Paisley lass, Jane Hamilton, who had married John McKenzie, a soldier serving in the Lanarkshire Militia, at the Glasgow Gaelic Chapel in 1803. Co-incidentally the minister who married them was also called John McKenzie. I am still trying to find out exactly how and when my ancestror came from exactly where in the gaelic speaking highlands to the Glasgow area. So I have a great-great-great grandfather who was a Mckenzie who was a soldier in Napoleonic times and therefore I'm entitled to wear the McKenzie tartan.