The problem with the "Rules", is that there aren't any. No one grants rules to tartans. There are people that say you can only wear your clan, there are other people that are honored if you wear their clan. The other thing is, "what is a clan tartan". For instance there are about a dozen tartans with the name Wilson. Only one is the actual Wilson tartan, gthe rest were just designed by a weaver who had the name Wilson, so go crazy and wear any of those you want.

Now having said that, I do understand the desire to have an association with a tatan. As has been said, most states (and some cities) have a tartan, there are armed forces tartans, college tartans, and generic tartans.

But all in all most reasonable people don't care as long as you show the tartan respect. As for where you get a family connection, I was just reading an article this weekend talking about common ancestry. Many experts are calculating that between 900-1500 years ago there existed a person who is now related to everyone in the entire world. Ergo you are related to every clan somehow.

Adam