Quote Originally Posted by marvelredneck View Post
As I have MANY Scottish Clans on both sides, and do not have a Scottish surname, I went with my father's side and with his mother's great-grandfather, Edward Duncan, and as Duncan is highly contested as a clan, I go with either Duncan or Robertson, (which some people say is the same thing) depending on who I'm talking to.
I read through most of the thread, which has been dormant a couple months, so I hope it's okay to revive it briefly, but I most related to marvelredneck's comment from page one.

Since I have a Saxon surname and at the very least six readily available Scottish names combined on both sides without going back very far, I went with my paternal grandmother's maiden name for a couple reasons:

1) It's the closest.
2) The Reid tartan is both dubious and god-awful ugly.
3) I quite frankly just fell in love with the Robertson tartan.

But I'm also aware that the surname Reed can be Irish and English. We have records of a marriage to a groom with a good Scottish name in Ulster. It's scant evidence, so I'm not gonna look too hard to disprove it. I can rule out the Irish, though.

In any case, I wouldn't bore anyone with any of this if they simply asked what tartan I was wearing. The minor uncertainty bugs me a little in the back of my mind, but I like the tartan I like and have gotten into the clan's history. And as others have said, I don't take it all too seriously. I'm more proud of being part Scottish/Celtic than being part of any clan.