When did your Clans and Scottish heritage start, when did you first wear the kilt.

[EagleJCS]

Growing up, I didn’t know much about my heritage on either side of the family. We didn’t really celebrate any cultural/ethnic heritage stuff because “We’re Americans”. For my father's family's part, it was a subject that was ‘not to be discussed’ – I found out why just a few years ago, and it was something Dad didn’t really know about either. His father didn’t discuss it. I’m going to leave it at that. When I was around 11-12 years old, Mom got a packet from a distant cousin which shared several generations of her father’s family history, largely German, which Mom never knew about being 4th generation American and her father having passed when she was still young. That sparked an interest in me to find out more, for both sides, but I didn’t really have much of an opportunity back then.

At around the same age, I developed an interest in bagpipes and decided I wanted to learn how to play them. Fast forward about 15 or so years. I found a piping instructor which eventually led to my finding out about Clan Scott (my surname), which I had never heard of. I was told then that even though there are Irish and English Scott’s in addition to the Scottish Scott’s, all are welcome to join the Clan Scott Society. That led to a drive to investigate my paternal line to find out our origins and if I could find where we came from and when.

With the help of the internet, I came across a cousin’s published research into our family (my grandfather’s cousin’s son, my second cousin once removed). I contacted him to correct what he had published about my branch, which he thanked me for, but he hasn't stayed in touch to share anything further. I have yet to be able to trace my paternal line myself far enough back to make the connection across the Atlantic, though one of the wives’ family (Prees/Preece/Price/Priest) goes back to Wales. His research goes back to about 1774 or so, still here in North America. As far as I know, that’s our “brick wall” for published records.

I do know now that I am basically an ‘American mutt’ – I have direct ancestors from several places in Western Europe. Wales, Ireland (my ggm, the most recent immigrant on my tree, came over at age 11 with her family in 1903), Germany (lots on both sides, mostly from the Rhine valley in the mid-1800’s), England, Luxembourg, Belgium. If you wanted to put a ratio to it, my ancestry is probably more German than anything, but all of the lines have been here in the US for well over 100 years now, so we're American.