I fully agree that people ought to know where they come from. If nothing else it allows them to better understand how they fit into the world.

Many people here in California simply don't care. Everything is focused on the now, or on tomorrow. Many people are totally ignorant of their heritage. Many others have a vague awareness but it's usually a mixture of truths and myths and misconceptions.

I've always been fascinated by the origins of things, all sorts of things. I'm interested in history but also paleontology, historical linguistics, in Denisovans and Australopithecines and such.

So much of what many Scottish-Americans believe about tartans is myth. It's wonderful to have Peter here on these boards doing important research shedding light on the real history of tartan.

I've been doing what little I can to dispel the mythology that surrounds the origins and evolution of the bagpipe, myths that through sheer repetition have gained an undeserved shine of truth.