Tartans sorted by base tartan?

[katon]

Are there any books or websites that sort tartans by their base? I've noticed that some tartans seem to start with a simpler tartan like Black Watch or Rob Roy, and then add to it. It seems like this would be a good way to keep them organized in my brain.

[Ayin McFye]

Are there any books or websites that sort tartans by their base? I've noticed that some tartans seem to start with a simpler tartan like Black Watch or Rob Roy, and then add to it. It seems like this would be a good way to keep them organized in my brain.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "base" since almost every tartan is unique. Some tartans may look similiar to other tartans but it may just be a coincidence. If you get good at using the tartan finder by color you can find just about anything you need.

Check out http://www.tartansauthority.com/web/site/home/home.asp and play with it for a while.

[Ayin McFye]

Oh yeah, and

[beloitpiper]

Ayin, what I think he means is like Gordon, Campbell, MacArthur, Lamont, MacKenzie, Sutherland, etc. are all derived from the Black Watch tartan.

katon, I don't think there's a definitive list, but it would be a great project!

[gilmore]

I seem to remember reading an article that posited and elaborated on just such a theory, that the Black Watch-derived tartans were one group, and another group derived from those that had red as the basic color. The author made geographic connections also, with the origins of the various tartans said to be within easily traveled distances, along the same coasts and river valleys. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Or am I delusional again?

[SteveB]

I think Gilmore is hot on this one. I remember reading a book titled The Tartan History of Scotland. It gave a little history of certain clans and their tartans and the other similar tartans. Such as a Black Watch tartan with a red stripe thin place of the thin black stripe through the blue block is used by.... etc. It covered a limited amount of tartans though.
The Scottish Tartans Authority "Tartan Ferret" has some good fuzzy search features that might help you on this one.

[SteveB]

Also:
Hello and a warm from Boston, Massachusetts.

[Morris at Heathfield]

Gilmore, you're probably just delusional.

Unless you happen to be referring to this article.

[Coemgen]

That's be a pretty cool project.

[gilmore]

Gilmore, you're probably just delusional.

Unless you happen to be referring to this article.

You are right on both counts:

"If tartan patterns are collated with a map of Clan territories, it can be seen that the basic patterns tended to travel along lines of communication gathering slight changes or embellishments as they went until perhaps, they might meet an above-average designer-weaver with fairly drastic results. The three main groups stay fairly closely confined to their respective territories, the MacDonald type running down the West side between the mountains and the sea and the Mackintosh east of the Great Glen from Strathglass south into Perthshire, branching east into Rothiemurchus and Speyside, though a few tartans of the type occur in connection with some Jacobite Clans outwith the area. The Ross type is confined Ross-shire and Sutherland and north thereof. There are some apparent anomalies as, for example, what is now known as the Huntly District tartan which was originally private to a Marchioness of Huntly and as such was a 'fancy' variation on Ross and had no territorial connection.

The Mackintosh group is the largest — a late-eighteenth century manufacturer's list calls it Caledonian Sett, which is understandable — but its subgroup has, so far, only four examples. D.W.Stewart (Old and Rare Scottish Tartans) reported a portrait of Robert Grant of Lurg, at Troup House, in Aberdeenshire, in which the sitter was wearing his tartan with a white overcheck on the red. Lurg is on Speyside, close to the confluence of the River Dulnain and following the Dulnain into Strathdearn we come across the pattern again at Invereen, on the River Findhorn, in the form of a plaid probably of late eighteenth or early nineteenth century origin, this time with a blue overcheck. With the blue and green stripes conjoined, this is the pattern of a plaid known to have belonged to Hugh Fraser of Boblainy, who inherited his estate from a cousin in 1805 but, between the two, it forms the basic structure of the tartan deposited by Sir Aeneas Mackintosh of Mackintosh as the tartan of his Clan with the Highland Society of London in 1817; much decorated with black and yellow, and with the blue lightened to a zinc-grey, it shows what a Highland artist/weaver could build upon a simple structure. In a simpler but perhaps more subtle way the Invereen plaid is turned into the red Clan Mackintosh tartan by moving the pairs of green and blue lines close to the blue overcheck and doubling the width of the green stripes...."