Census poll: What is your cultural / historical connection to the kilt?

[Father Bill]

Oh, no intent to deflate any balloons, it's just that if you are born over here then it's common knowledge that Mary Tudor died without an heir paving the way for Elizabeth 1.
It's perfectly true that family stories get twisted. I spent well over 20 years on my family tree and found this to be true, I also found that the old adage about truth being stranger than fiction to hold true, including two name changes.

I met an American girl years ago who told me that she was the direct descendent of William Wallace. I hadn't the heart to tell her how unlikely that was.........................

Right on. Well said. I didn't see it as any sort of attack, just a historical fact that could be disappointing.

[Droid]

I've traced my surname back to 1865 in Canada. That's where and when my Great Great Grandfather was born. I'm told by my family that we are Scottish. I'm not sure how many generations lived in Canada after moving there from Scotland. I'd like to find that piece of evidence that links my specific family lineage to Scotland, but I have yet found it.

[hylander]

5th generation (kind of), paternal great-great grandfather immigrated to the US in 1833 from Glasgow, before that I don't know, yet. Paternal grandmother was Kentuckian born and bread so possibly some Scots-Irish on that side.

[guardsman]

Born in Wales , scottish blood 100 percent, g g grandfather Irish. Otherwise apart from birth pretty much a Scot!

[CMcG]

Ah, but let's not let lassmanic's balloon deflate completely. The route by which this Bible was received is obviously then, not as described over the years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't any connection at all as had been posited by the ancestors!

Family stories tend to get twisted and yet often have truth layered between the folds!

Indeed, Father. Stories have just as much value -- sometimes even more -- than histories. It can be problematic for clarity of expression when people conflate the two, but historical or scientific fact does not necessarily trump the truth of stories, whether they be family tales, myths, legends, or folklore.

There has been a recent move towards this type of semi-paradoxical thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The subaltern historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, for example, has written about the need to recognize the coextensiveness of both historiographical facts and belief in stories, because they are both integral to forming lived experience.

In his book "Provincializing Europe" (2000), he points out that that Cartesian duality, Baconian method, and Occam's Razor have pushed modernity into a positioning that is increasingly isolating and alienating. His solution is not in a scientific "either/or" position, but being able to embrace a "both/and." I like the way he writes because he can lay out documented historical facts alongside stories and beliefs without letting one dominate the other.

Life is pretty dry without a bit of faith and mystery, eh?

[Chirs]

...There has been a recent move towards this type of semi-paradoxical thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The subaltern historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, for example, has written about the need to recognize the coextensiveness of both historiographical facts and belief in stories, because they are both integral to forming lived experience.

In his book "Provincializing Europe" (2000), he points out that that Cartesian duality, Baconian method, and Occam's Razor have pushed modernity into a positioning that is increasingly isolating and alienating. His solution is not in a scientific "either/or" position, but being able to embrace a "both/and." I like the way he writes because he can lay out documented historical facts alongside stories and beliefs without letting one dominate the other. ...

Interesting. Thank you

[Bugbear]

We live in our heads, CMcG, and all of our heads together are making the world of human culture.
As I think I wrote earlier in the thread, too, we are recording our moment in history; perhaps, to future historians, distorted toward kilt wearing.

[Salvianus]

I was born in Cheshire and still live in England, but my Mother lived in Coatbridge, near Glasgow until the war and my aunt was born there. I was raised with a few Scottish figures of speech and a love of the highlands. My best friend lives in Dunbar, also English by birth, but his wonderful kids are born and bred.

Of more academic interest, in terms of ancestry, my father's family is from around Cheshire/South Lancashire from at least the 16thC and the family name is from North Wales through the Middle Ages, but there is a Scottish equivalent, the MacKendricks, usually counted with Clan Henderson. Whether one accepts the traditional claim of descent from the legendary Pictish line of Eanruig Mor Mac Righ Neachtan, it seems at least possible that the North and West British Kendricks have a common connection, back in the mists.

Speculation perhaps, but, as a gift, my wife had my genes tested and all I can say is that my paternal line is of the common stock of Ireland and Northern and Western Britain, not what we think of today of Saxon or Norse/Norman. By this type of test, the same genes are shared by almost 100% of men with Gaelic surnames in the far west of Ireland, in Wales 83%, in Scotland 73% & in England about 64%, basically as you would expect given more a mobile population as you near the ports of South-East England.

I mention this on the thread because genealogy and ancestry is a double edged sword - a source of great positives; identity, pride, unity and historical discovery, but which has a corollary which can be used to reinforce our natural tendencies to division. My own genetics emphasise the common heritage of the people of these Isles if you go back in history to a time before even these medieval nations were named, itself just a relatively recent branch of the one tree of humanity. I apologise for the philosophy, I've had that kind of day.

[BARNAGRASS]

Well, I visited several times Scotland to learn bagpipes (The College of Piping, Glasgow) and my sweetheart is scottish, so i am adopted

[Darren Smith]

My Grandparents on my father’s side were born in Scotland and emigrated to Canada in the early 1900’s.