Any Clan Donald experts out there?

[Nathan]

I'm a proud MacDonald of Clanranald. At present, I own two lovely kilts. One military kilt in generic Clan Donald tartan
and one in Clanranald modern. (Same as Donald, but with the thin white lines added).
Clan Donald

Clanranald


My Chief, the Captain of Clanranald doesn't wear the same clanranald tartan as I do but seems to wear an orange one that was registered in 1914 but the STA site says,

"From D C Dalgliesh. also appears in Peter MacDonald swatch files. From MacKay's 1914 'The Romantic Story of Highland Garb'. Also named MacDonnell of Clan Ranald Ancient and said to be from Cockburn Collection 1815. Note on modern sample also adds "John MacDonald, High Commissioner Clan Donald" suggesting that either the sample or the information was from him."



I know any MacDonald can rightly wear the Clan Donald tartan since all of the branches have joined the High Council of Clan Donald Chiefs, thus making my Captain, subordinate to Lord MacDonald.

My question is, what about the other MacDonald tartans? Which, if any other ones would be "correct". I'm sure nobody would ever "call me out" on wearing any of them, but given the fact that I would only like to wear tartan associated with my particular family, where do tartans such as "Of the Isles" and "Lord of the Isles" much less "Sleat" or "of Skye" fall for a MacDonald of Clanranald? I know Glengarry is a sub-branch of my clan that I'm not affiliated to so I wouldn't wear that but what about MacDonald of Boisdale, for example? The Captain of Clanranald is actually descended from the Boisdale line as our direct chiefly line "daughtered out" in the mid 20th Century. Would the Boisdale tartan be appropriate for any Clanranald clansman at this point?

There are 29 MacDonald tartans on the Tartan Authority website. The two I have are very similar and will do me fine for years. I was just curious about some of the others that are in a very different colour scheme. Some of them come from the Sobeiski Stuarts book, others are from paintings and others are from artifacts.

For the tartan expert out there, aside from the two I have and the one my Chief wears, are there any others that would be equally correct?

Please understand my perspective on tartan is pretty conservative in the sense that I only want to wear "my clan" tartan(s). I'm not from the "Wear any tartan you like" school of thought so please don't clog up this thread with replies of that nature.