Tartan Questions

**Offline** · 6th January 13, 08:41 AM

Hello again!

I was trying to do more research into my family and came across a tartan that I believe is my families. As I started doing research into the tartan, I read on here that many tartans were not registered until the 1900s.

I am trying to go as authentic as I can for my family name and was wondering if anyone could verify if the tartan I found is for my family or not. The more research I did the more it pointed me to an alternate spelling of my name

The family name is Downey and the tartan (Downie) is below:

Thank you all for your help!

Kraig

**Grizzly** · 6th January 13, 12:03 PM

Hi and firstly welcome to xmarks from Southampton UK.

I checked on the Scottish Tartans Authority website and it would seem that Downey/Downie is a sept of the Lindsay Clan. The Downie tartan that you found was only designed in 1982 so is a modern concept. The STA shows 2 registered Lindsay tartans standard and hunting. Nice tartans.

**Offline** · 6th January 13, 12:32 PM

Thank you so much. I will look into those tartans as well.

Kraig

**Grizzly** · 6th January 13, 01:02 PM

http://www.downiesurname.org/clans-a...ie-surname.php

Check out the above link. It has some interesting and useful information that may assist in your search.

**Offline** · 6th January 13, 03:41 PM

That was an excellent read. Thank you much for pointing me there.

**gilmore** · 12th January 13, 09:50 PM

A note of reality: almost all tartan designs were created long---centuries--- after the hey days of the clans, by tartan merchants beginning in the 19th century, who gave them names in order to sell them to the newly emerging, post-Industrial Revolution, urban middle class in search of rural and Highland fantasies, and with the money to pay for it. There are only two ways to know which---if any---clan your ancestors were associated with. One is time-consuming genealogical research in which one goes backward in time, carefully documenting each generation before preceding to the previous one. The other is Y-DNA testing which might---and only might---be helpful in determining one's patrilineal ancestry. For info on this, see the FAQ at www.familytreedna.com

You should also be aware that septs were historically not a Scots institution, but were an Irish idea, which the tartan merchants have promoted as a way to sell more tartan. Many of them are totally bogus, others merely questionable.

What made a person a member of a clan---if we can use that terms---was not birth and surname, but allegiance to a clan chief. These days some say that it is right and proper to write a clan chief and ask for permission to be associated with his clan.

One must remember that clans and clan associations are two different things.

**David** · 13th January 13, 08:57 AM

Its an interesting question about how far you go to be "authentic". My name is Baxter. We are supposedly a "sept" of the MacMillan clan, and I have an ancient hunting MacMillan kilt. I have been tracing my family history, I have managed to get back to the early 1500's in a direct paternal line. Where an I from? the east coast, Fife and Dundee. Not a connect with the west coast MacMillans. So should I wear the Baxter tartan from the Fife Baxters? My GGGGG Grandfather moved away from Fife and into Lanarkshire in the early/mid 1700's. So, is 250 years since I had a connection with the Baxter's from Fife.

From the tartan genealogy web sites I can wear the following: (all only from my paternal great, great grand etc grand mothers. i have not even looked at my maternal side yet)
Currie = Macdonald and or Macpherson tartan. Ballantyne = Bannatyne = Campbell or Stewart of Bute tartan. Grewar = Drummond, Fraser or Macgregor tartan.

Quite a selection and all pretty meaningless to me in the here and now. When I get a new kilt, I'll just pick a tartan that I like, or I'll design my own. So, Offline, if I were you, that's what I'd do.

**bax7889** · 19th February 13, 09:14 AM

David, I too am a Baxter and would love to have more time and $$ to look into my family history. You may want to look into the 'Baxter of Balgavies' tartan. I believe that to be 'ours' though I still see that it is somewhat connected to the Buchanan.

**neloon** · 19th February 13, 11:48 AM

Yes, I'm afraid most septs are pretty imaginative links to sell more tartan. Likewise the invention of tartans starting from the 1830s and now accelerated by means of computer software.

Alan

**TheOfficialBren** · 19th February 13, 12:46 PM

Gilmore, you mentioned in your post above about the belief that some people think that it is proper to write to a chief to ask permission to be associated with his clan. How does one do so and is there a place to do this?
Thank you.

Neloon, ***
Septs are pretty much Victorian fantasy, as are much of the modern notions about the clans.