New here - need help with understanding Clans

[ThistleDown]

As for lowland Scots clans, there were a few even going back to early times. It is still true, however, that most lowlanders did not belong to one historically. One such border clan is Davidson, my wife's clan. Now, Davidson is not the Gaelic form of the name, but nobody in the borders spoke or speaks Gaelic. OTOH, there are many (most?) Davidsons having no connection to the clan whatsoever.

There are many names that are not clans, or even septs of a clan, that nevertheless have their own tartan. Suffice to say it doesn't take much to register a tartan. An example is Hart, which occurs in my own family tree, and which can be either English, Irish or Scottish (and in our case might be any of the above). Now, the tartan is Hart of Scotland, implying you have to be of Scots descent to wear it, and yet AFAIK there is no Hart clan, nor any Hart sept of any other clan. If you might think that were an unusual situation, you would be wrong. It is also true of several other tartans.

Lots of Davidsons in Scotland. It was the twenty-fifth most common name at one 19C point in time. There were Davidsons in Roxbourghshire, Ayrshire, The Lothians, Fife, Aberdeenshire, Caithness, Perthshire, Ross-shire, Inverness-shire. Also in Ulster (with Macdhais), Cumbria, Northumberland and the Home Counties. Sons of David, a Hebrew name. Queen Elizabeth of England had a Davison Secretary; a Bishop of Canterbury out of Mid-Lothian was a Davidson; there are Davisons in Orkney and Davies in Wales. Most are without a connection to the Davidsons of Badenoch, the Mackintoshes, the Macphersons and the Clan Chattan. Some are, of course, and the place of origin for your name always sets you on the right track (well, given that that's not 18th or 19C Glasgow or Dundee, that is). The Davidson of Tulloch tartan is peculiarly to the Highland family claimed to be descendants of the Badenoch/Lochaber origin of the clan and I will leave the Clan Davidson tartan to Peter Macdonald to origin for us. My understanding is that it is based on the Government tartan through Davidson of Cantray. Both Cantray and Tulloch, of course, were descended of the Clan Chattan. In the borders look to the family with which your ancestor was territorially attached.