How old is a tradition?

[Ayin McFye]

(Also note: the first posts of this thread was from mid-2005. I wonder if the thoughts of the early posters has changed, remained the same, or been reinforced.)

I agree. I would like to see some of the original members who posted to this forum 2 years ago reply to see if they still hold their views to be the same.

I have a side note i'd like to ask regarding this topic.

If one person starts a tradition and does it for 10 years and does it on a daily basis, and then someone sees them doing that "tradition" and does it for 5 years, does the person doing it for only 5 years have any less right to that tradition?

[Alan H]

The's also the notion of how thorougly I am "connected" to a tradition.

For example, my actual Scottish Ancestry, and by that I mean ancestors that I know are directly descended from immigrants from Scotland, date back to the 1770's. In other words, it's no "me" that's "Scottish"...or my parents or my grandparents. No, it's John McKNight, who emigrated from Ulster in 1730, or John Bryson, whose mother was Scottish, but of unknown origin, as of 1756.

Ever since then, all of my ancestors except my Swedish, maternal g-grandfather, and my French-Canadian paternal grandfather were born on US Soil. so my Scottish connections are mighty thin.

Does this mean, therefore, that I am less connected to...and perhaps less obliged to observe certain traditions regarding the wearing of kilts, etc?

Another way to say this would be..... Is it more onerous if a "real" Scotsman ...someone actually living in Scotland right now, with Scottish family roots going back several generations... "incorrectly" wore a kilt, than if some person from the USA with distant and faint roots to Scottish ancestry, incorrectly wears the kilt?