Which tartan for MacClive?

[Nathan]

BTW, Nathan and all, I very much appreciate all of your help and don't be "that guy" that argues against suggestions and help given. I just very much doubt the Irish connection.

I really can't see my family having a problem with being Irish if that was the case, but they were so proud of being from the Scottish highlands it was mentioned often during the little time I got to be around them.

I wish I knew more but outside of My Grandfather's parents and his birthplace, I'm stumped.

Fair enough, and if they were from Aberdeenshire, they were from the Highlands by some definitions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Highlands

There's also a good possibility they had no idea about the Irish connection. The Highland clan system ended after 1745. If a family had come to Scotland from Ireland in say 1770 and then moved to the New World in say 1900, would they not consider themselves Scots? After a couple of generations of marrying Scots would not the Irish arrival story be a bit of a footnote?

I have a Canadian friend who is married and living in Cambodia. He's Canadian and hangs out with the other ex-pat Canadians there. The fact that his family came to Canada from Ireland and to Ireland from Wales a couple of hundred years before that probably doesn't come up in conversation much. I'll bet if he stays there, his descendants will know he was Canadian and that will likely be the end of it. See what I'm saying?

I'm just saying to follow the evidence and try to be open to wherever it takes you.