Scottish equivalent of "Smith"

[Phil]

if your ancestors were lowland folk then they would not have worn the kilt at all, bear in mind at one time lowland folk were as likely to wear the kilt as dallas cowboys fans are as likely to wear a miami dolpins shirt.

Good advice highlander_Daz and, to be perfectly honest, the same goes for highlanders and islanders as well as I think the archive film footage in Thursday nights "Scotland on Film" programme amply demonstrated during 30 minutes of totally kiltless footage. On my frequent forays to the highlands and islands the people I have met there I know would love to own and wear a kilt but the harsh reality for most of them is that they have so many other necessities to scrape for that an expensive kilt is at the bottom of their list of priorities.

[Jock Scot]

Good advice highlander_Daz and, to be perfectly honest, the same goes for highlanders and islanders as well as I think the archive film footage in Thursday nights "Scotland on Film" programme amply demonstrated during 30 minutes of totally kiltless footage. On my frequent forays to the highlands and islands the people I have met there I know would love to own and wear a kilt but the harsh reality for most of them is that they have so many other necessities to scrape for that an expensive kilt is at the bottom of their list of priorities.

I have always thought that too and that wonderful, but oh so trying, stubborn pride of theirs would not allow them to have anything less than the very best kilt that money could buy.In consequence kilts are few and far between.

[timseh]

Thanks all for the advice. I had some understanding of how the clan system worked, but I guess it didn't really dawn on me until it was explained here. Thank you!

It is going to take some digging if I'm going to come up with anything. I've made some progress with my paternal grandmother's family. Talk about confusion with naming. They're from Norway. It's enough to make my head explode. I have managed to get that back to the mid 16th century. My maternal grandparents both have roots in Germany and I've been able to trace that line just as far back.

Unfortunately, my paternal grandfather has passed, and there's pretty much no-one left in the family who has any information.

We can't locate what documentation gramps had, but we do know that he had a genealogy going linking us to Edward Doten, who arrived on the Mayflower. That puts both sides of my family here since the late 16th/early 17th century.

I have had the thought of just sticking with the Marine Corps Tartan and moving on. That might just be the best thing to do at this point (I'm not giving up, though).

Just out of curiosity, I've seen a plethora of Harbisons listed in County Stirling. From what little I've read of it so far, this seems to have been a critical piece of territory. As it seems the clans were more or less territorial in nature, I'd assume one was predominant there. I'm going to do some more research, but until I've either settled or exhausted trying to flesh out the tree a bit, does anyone happen to know what Clan or Clans that was?

[timseh]

I see already that my question was just plain stupid... It seems that Stirling / Bannockburn is the answer.

I've also managed to locate, much to my surprise, a history of the Harbison/Doty family in America, now thankfully available in all it's photocopied glory from Google Book Search as a PDF file, which definitively links me to Edward Doty of Mayflower fame. According to a brief perusal of the 1000 page tome, Edward was said to be "A youth from London", though this is almost certainly false as his papers have been proven to be a forgery. Suspicion seems to be that he was Scottish or Irish, neither one of which seems to have been popular in London around that time (1620).

I'm getting there.

[RedBeard]

Poke around on http://www.tartansauthority.com/Web/...rchintroc2.asp

[Downix]

As the Wizard says it's not about names. The clan system, when it existed, was organised a bit like the Mafia to giva a modern-day analogy. The Chief was the godfather and he controlled the lands in his territory. Under him were a number of close relatives who would have managed the day-to-day "protection rackets" i.e. collecting rents from a variety of people who rented a bit of land from him and , in return, they ensured that none of the neighbouring clansmen from other clans murdered, raped or pillaged on the Chief's lands. If there was an attack they would raise the clansmen into an army by lighting fiery crosses across the lands which acted as a signal to the clansmen to gather. None, or very few, of these tenants would have been related to, or have the same name as the Chief and his family but they would have been clan members nevertheless.

Ooooo, the latest Coppola film, the Clanfather!!! 8)

[Panache]

Timseh,

I have moved your thread to the "Tartans and Heraldry" forum where I think is a better fit for the topic.

Cheers

Jamie

[gilmore]

I've been hoping some of our more academic members would chime in on this topic.
Now please understand I'm not a scholar of Scottish History I just make Kilts. But because I get just this sort of question almost every week I've had to read a lot.
I am going to over simplify my explanation and try to make it understandable. I'm not going to use all the proper terms and I'm not going to quote dates. I'll leave that to those who have studied this subject a lot more than I have.

Timseh, I think you are operating under a bit of misinformation or belief here. Yes, the clans were named for the chief. Yes, members of the chief's family would be members of his clan.

But the clan system was not based solely on family and names. It was feudalism. A Lord owned land. Under the lord were some knights who formed the lords standing army. Then there were merchants and tradespeople who worked for the lord and provided goods and services. Then there were serfs who worked the land providing the food and livestock. All these people were in and came under the lord's clan. Most of them were not from, or part of, his family but they were members of the clan. If the clan and the clan lands were threatened all would come to the defense.

The clan system predates feudalism. As the power of the central government grew, such as it did, in the Middle Ages and later, the clans were slowly incorporated into feudalistic government, with the chief or chieftans becoming feudal barons and lords, and lesser clansmen becoming their tenants.

So it's not about names. It's not just about family. It's about where you lived, who you sworn allegiance to, who you agreed to help, work for, or serve.

The Highland Clan system that everyone romances about was effectively dead a couple of hundred years before the Kilt as we know it, and named Tartans, were invented. So it's a moot point really.

In the days when the Clan system was active Named Tartans did not exist. If you wanted to show membership in a Clan you wore the Plant Badge of the Clan.

If your genealogical research can trace your family back to a specific region of the Scottish Highlands then perhaps you can feel some connection to the Clan from that region. But to think that that Clan must be found and that only that Clan is the right one I'm afraid is just not correct.

I hope some others will join in this and use the proper terms. But to me the whole belief that there is one and only one Clan that I can say is "mine" just does not fit with the facts.
I find that this whole idea of "My Clan" is somewhat akin to the "My Family Coat of Arms" sort of thinking. Both are the product of a lot of misinformation.

As noted, the clan system is no more, other than in a few vestigial rights and privileges that as often custom rather than law gives to the chiefs.

The end of the clans as viable political entities is usually reckoned to be 1746, with the failure of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The revival of tartans and things Scottish started in the reign of George IV, several decades, not 200 years, later.

It's certainly true that not everyone had ancestors who were associated with a clan, but many of us wear tartans only from the clans from which we descend.

[Nick the DSM]

Isn't Smith from clan Gow??

[timseh]

This has certainly been enlightening. I'm finding something new at every turn.

At this stage, I'm thinking more and more that the best way to move forward is simply to embrace my heritage and simply adopt the Tartan that best identifies me. That would undoubtedly have to be the Leatherneck. Though I only served one tour of duty, I'm a Marine until the day I die. Seems fitting. Still, I'm planning within the next few years to visit Scotland and County Stirling is at the top of my list. I've found so far, that every Harbison I've ever encountered can trace their lineage back to an ancestor we have in common, at least in this country. I wouldn't be surprised to find that many if not most I might encounter there are (very) distant cousins.