Quote Originally Posted by David View Post
There was a time Jason when I would have said wear your family/clan tartan and thats all you can wear. My surname is Baxter, so i got my kilt made up in ancient hunting MacMillan. Recently i have traced my family tree back to the mid 1500's (a GGGG...... Grandfather on my tree and possibly the same man on another persons tree is still to be confirmed). From this research i found that all this lineage is on the East Coast of Scotland, from Lanarkshire through Fife to just north of Dundee; and its all through the male line. This area where my ancestors are from is no where near the West Coast MacMillans, I know the MacMillans branched east to Perthshire, but that was to around the west end of Loch Tay and still about 80/90 miles from where my (probably weaving ancestors) lived. I suppose my point is that if you need to go back to the time of Galileo Galilei, to get a "legitimate" claim to wear a clan tartan, you really are stretching the point.

As was seen on a recent BBC TV programme, it is probable that it was a couple of Welshmen that invented / popularised the whole tartan cult anyway. So, given your details, I'd say you have a legitimate claim to pick what ever tartan you like. What ever tartan you wear, wear it with dignity and respect; no matter its origins, tartan in general and tartan kilts in particular do after all represent a Nation.
My mother's side are Muirheads (Morehead) from the Lanarkshire region, who apparently were displaced by the removals to Ireland, before coming to the US in the 19th Century. All in all though, I think etiquette is over-rated.