A tartan conundrum.

[Bob C]

I searched long and hard for a tartan that belonged to my family. Finally, after accepting that there was none, and deciding that the clan association in the "Tartan for Me" mythology was a load of crap, I settled on a district tartan that I like very much. It was the kilt I was married in and it's the tartan I wear most of the time.

Now, there is a new tartan with my family name. It was commissioned by a guy who bought a barony and hired Matt Newsome to design it. Apparently, this guy now considers himself "the titled head of the family" (Matt's words). This, despite the existence of an Earl with our name - one whose family gained the title in the 1800s through public service.

Let me be clear - I'm not criticizing Matt. He was hired to do a job and he designed a beautiful tartan.

My problem is that I resent a guy who bought a title declaring himself the head of my family and committing my family name to a tartan of his choosing - one which is not based on actual family history, as near as I can tell. I don't accept Matt's assertion that Baron Boughtmytitle has any more right to co-opt the family name than I, or anyone else of our ilk, do.

So, here's the conundrum. I would love to be able to tell people that the tartan I'm wearing is my family tartan, and I DO like the tartan, but my resentment over the situation makes me unlikely to wear it.

At the very least, I think the tartan should have been registered as "Family name" of Boughtmytitle instead of simply as "Family name." The more I think about this, the angrier I get.

Opinions?

[Kid Cossack]

Bob:

IF IT WAS ME . . . and I liked the tartan, I'd have a kilt made in that tartan and wear it. I would mention, if people inquired, that it was a lovely tartan designed by a member of the family (extended, that is!), who asserts that he is the head of the clan. I'd mention that I don't recognize Mr. Boughtmytitle as clan head, but that I like the tartan.

Deal done!

[RockyR]

Save your pennies and design your own! Make it "family name Hunting" or "Family Name Dress" or "Family Name Variant" or "Family Name of California (or whatever state you're from)... no reason 1 family can't have MORE than 1 tartan.

[setboy]

Save your pennies and design your own! Make it "family name Hunting" or "Family Name Dress" or "Family Name Variant" or "Family Name of California (or whatever state you're from)... no reason 1 family can't have MORE than 1 tartan.

If you can get the $$ together, this is what i would do.


Raphael

[arrogcow]

I have to agree with Rocky and Setboy. It is actually something I intend to do in the next year or so. Also make it free for anyone to use (the Baron sounds like the kind of guy that would want his permission to use his), and contant your families geanological society (or just geanology enthusiasts with your name on Ancestry.com) and let them know about both tartans (and the Baron's claim to be head of the family). You may get enough interest to get a cheap run of the tartan (like the X-mark run) and thus establish that your tartan is the "family" one and the other is just for posers.

Adam

[ozone]

The brits are silly anyway, I would just ignore mr. purchase-the-barony guy and follow the wise advice of the previous posters.

A related question is: why would GB allow people buy these titles anyway? Doesn't this just dilute the meaning of a title. To me, people should have to earn this kind of stuff. I know, I know, perhaps singing well doesn't necessarily deserve a title, but at least Elton John and others did have to DO something to earn their title rather than show up with a wad of cash.

My Dutch ancestor earned their title by helping out during the 100 year war...OK so anyone with a sword apparently got a title back then, but still....

[Bob C]

While I love Rocky's suggestion, I could not possibly afford both the commissioning of a tartan and the divorce that would ensue after I told my wife what I spent a bunch of our money on.

[macwilkin]

The brits are silly anyway, I would just ignore mr. purchase-the-barony guy and follow the wise advice of the previous posters.

A related question is: why would GB allow people buy these titles anyway? Doesn't this just dilute the meaning of a title. To me, people should have to earn this kind of stuff. I know, I know, perhaps singing well doesn't necessarily deserve a title, but at least Elton John and others did have to DO something to earn their title rather than show up with a wad of cash.

My Dutch ancestor earned their title by helping out during the 100 year war...OK so anyone with a sword apparently got a title back then, but still....

Generally speaking, the Brits do not allow the sale of titles, with the exception of Scottish barons:

http://www.faketitles.com/

And chances are "The Baron" is a Yank, not a Brit, So silly Yanks as well.

And are you sure your Dutch ancestor didn't get his title in the 30 Year's War?

T.

[gilmore]

Generally speaking, the Brits do not allow the sale of titles, with the exception of Scottish barons:

http://www.faketitles.com/

And chances are "The Baron" is a Yank, not a Brit, So silly Yanks as well.

And are you sure your Dutch ancestor didn't get his title in the 30 Year's War?

T.

What is purchasable is not the title "baron" (they are something quite different), but the purchase of a title peculiar to Scotland by quirks or law and history, known as "baron of parliament."The former, the real barons, are in the peerage of Scotland. The latter, the barons of parliament, have the right to sit in the old parliament of the kingdom of Scotland (not the present devolved Scottish parliament) should it ever be recalled, an event that is most improbable. The Act of Union would have to be repealed, Scotland and England would go their separate ways, there would have to be a monarch of Scotland, etc. They were known as "lairds." What made a laird a laird was the owning of land, that is, holding it from the crown or from a great noble. In latter days this came to mean needing to own only the caput of the land, which came to be defined as including, or even limited to, the main hearth of the largest house, or "seat." So, a rather small piece of land could be sold and carry with it the right to be known as "Laird of XXXXX." One's eldest son was know as "Smith, the Younger of XXXX." Some of these lairdships carried quaint and archaic rights and privileges, such as the right to the salmon in a stream running through the land, the right to beached whales, the right to hold court and enforce some laws, the right to appoint a judge to preside over that court, etc. These were the only titles of nobility in Europe that could be legally bought and sold.

A few years ago, the Blair government abolished feudal tenure of land altogether, but since there was, and still is, a market for these titles (albeit a shady one), these titles have value in and of themselves, sometimes GBP 50,000 or more. In order to abolish these lairdships, the government would have had to reimburse their owners for their value, a cost of millions or billions. The solution was to sever the titles' connection with the land so they are freely marketed. This has created a host of problems. There is no system of recording the ownership these landless "lairdships" or of their being bought and sold or inherited. The Lyon court's approach has confused as much as it has clarified. For a thorough discussion, go to here: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.t.../topics?lnk=li and search for Scottish baronies. You will find a wealth of excrutiatingly erudite opinion, but not much of it conclusive: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.t...rch+this+group

I do not travel in upper class British circles, but my understanding is that these people who buy them with serious intent (unlike our Hamish, Laird of Lochaber) are either pitied or scorned and ridiculed. One sees pictures of them online sometimes with various chiefs of clans and aristocrats who are often smiling broadly, but one can't tell whether they are being laughed with or laughed at.

Being the head of a clan is a very different matter and has nothing whatsoever to do with whether one is a laird/baron of parliament, baron, viscount, earl, marquess or duke. Only heads of the clans which have been recognized by Lyon (the legal arbiter of Scottish heraldry) are chiefs or chieftans, and these are the ones who traditionally and by custom decide what their clan's tartan will be. This decreeing of what a clan tartan is does not at all have the force of law, but merely custom (other than if it comes under the laws of copyright.) Disputes of what a clan or family tartan is cannot be brought before Lyon Court, as can disputes arising out of some one illegally using some one else's arms (coat of arms, crest, etc) as his own.

Declaring oneself a "head of a family" is yet something else, and millions of people do that every time a census is taken, I suppose. Legally, I would think it means that one is head of one's household, so I guess one can decree that the wearing of a "family" tartan in this case to include one's children, spouse and perhaps a few others who are living with you, such as paying boarders one may have taken in to help meet the rent.

So, it is true, he may be titled (though the title in question is not held in great esteem by anyone the least bit knowledgeable in such matters) and he may be head of some family or another (although that is limited to his wife, children and those of his siblings who go along with his pretensions), and he may thus be a "titled head of his family," I don't see how this has anything at all to do with you, your family or anyone else with the same surname.

There will always be prideful people with more money than sense, and there will always be those who are happy to separate them from their money. There is no need to be angry. Rather, you could be happy that you are not as foolish or gullible as some.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Since I designed the tartan in question, let me chime in here before thigns get too out of hand.

David C____ is the Baron of ______ and he is the one who commissioned me to design the tartan. When he contacted me, he said he wanted to design a tartan "for my family and to be available to anyone of the name C____ or a derivative."

He never once claimed to be the head of the family or "cheif of the name" or anything else like that.

In a PM conversation with Bob C., I was speaking to the fact that David C_____'s title as Baron of _____ gives the tartan a bit more of an official status than had it been commissioned by "Dave C_____ from New Jersey" (in other words, just any old person named C_____).

When a private individual creates a new tartan for his family name, unless he has some authority to speak for the name, it is only recorded as a "personal" tartan. For instance, if I designed a "Newsome" tartan, it would be considered a personal tartan. This doesn't prevent anyone from wearing it who wants to, but it simply recognizes that I don't have any more authority to declare a tartan for all Newsomes than Bob Newsome from Ontario or Jim Newsome from Tazmania.

David C_____, being an actial Scottish Baron, has a bit more status in this regard, so his tartan can truly be considered a "family tartan."

When communicating to Bob C., it was I who used the phrase "head of family" in an attempt to convey this. I was completely unaware of the existence of the Earl of C_____. When Bob pointed this out to me, I immediately corrected myself. I just want to point out now that the reference I made to David C_____ as "head of family" was my mistake, made in a private conversation. In none of my correspondence with Mr. C_____ has he made such claims about himself.

(I did give Bob C. David's email address so that he might contact him for details himself -- Bob, I don't know if you ever contacted him directly or what information he may have given to you, I can only speak of my own conversations with him.)

The C_____ tartan that I designed for the Baron of _____ was based on elements of Mr. C_____'s family history as he supplied the details to me. The Barony, according to him, originally belonged to the Crawford family, so he wanted elements of the Lindsay/Crawford tartan to be involved to honor them. His father and uncle served in the Black Watch regiment, so elements of that tartan are incorporated. Colors from his Arms are also used.

Mr. C_____ is rather involved in preserving and promoting Scottish history -- he was a founder of the National Museum of Scotland and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland. He seems very interested in making his new tartan available to the wider public for general use by all of the name. I know he has been in communication with Strathmore woolen mills, and I have supplied him with the contact details for a few other tartan weavers in Scotland who may be interested.

Whatever else, he is very interested in there being a tartan for the ______ name available to the public, and that's a good thing.

Now, if the Earl of C_____ decides to commission a different tartan and give his blessing to it, then perhaps this tartan would have to be redesignated "C_____ of ______" but as it stands now it is the only tartan for the name.

I just want to be clear in this posting that David C______, Baron of ______, had never to me made any claims to be head of the worldwide C______ name, and simply wanted to have a tartan "for my family and to be available for any of the name C______ or a derivative" (his own words). I am very sorry if I at all misrepresented his position in my correspondence with Bob C.

Aye,
Matt