There is a friend of mine who is black and lives locally. He is descended from a Scot named Russel and keeps threatening to get a Russel tartan kilt -- I told him to let me know when he is ready! Now looking at him, he is rather light skinned....

...but I have another story from several years ago at the Stone Mountain, GA, Highland Games. This tall, very dark skinned black man comes up to our tartan information tent and asks to see the MacNeil tartan. Sure, I say, and flip open my swatch book and show it to him. As he's looking at it, this elderly white man (obviously a native Georgian by his accent) comes up next to him and asks, "Is your last name MacNeil?"

"Yeah," the black man says, "Yeah it is."

"Well mine is, too," says the white man. "Do you know what that means?"

"Naw," the black man says, looking down on him suspiciously. "What does that mean?"

"It means," says the old white fellow, "that my ancestors probably owned your ancestors." (My eyebrows are raised at this point as I listen in to the conversation).

"Naw," says the black man, shaking his head, "Naw, I don't think so. My grandfather Robert MacNeil came here from Scotland and married a black woman he met in the US." Then he looks at me, "So can I wear this tartan?"

I laughed, as this man seems to have closer connections with Scotland than either I or this old Georgia man. "Yes," I said, "you certain can."

So it just goes to show, you can never know what someone's heritage might be, and I never doubt or ask questions when an unlikely-looking person comes up to me and asks, "What's my tartan?"

Aye,
Matt