Beck surname

[gilmore]

Hi ya'll. I just came from the Scottish festival in Arlington, Texas and was told of your site while attending. My Beck surname is listed in some sources as a clan with a Beck tartan (STA #3819). I would like to have a kilt, etc. made with this tartan but only if the information is accurate. I got most of this information from Scotweb.com.uk. but a few books did give some obscure references to the 14th century clan but no details. I would appreciate any thoughts from any of you to help ease my mind before I make the leap. Does having an assigned STA number mean the existence of the clan and if so, how does one find the proper clan with which to associate? How "official" is the STA designation? Also, can anyone vouch for the Scotweb company? Mail order custom clothing worries me. Thanks for your help and sorry for the length of the posting.

That a tartan is listed in either of the registries doesn't make it official as to anything at all. What does is being designated the tartan by the governing authority of the entity it represents. Thus, the chief of a clan decides what is an is not his clan's tartan. State legislatures decide which tartan is the official tartan of their state, etc.

What makes a Scottish clan a clan is there being a chief, recognized by Lyon Court. If there is no chief, there really is no clan at all, even though there may be clan associations with their own tartans, but that is a somewhat different thing.

I would be wary of lists of septs that are allegedly members of the various clans. Some names are on several of them. Some very common surnames---many of which aren't usually even Scots---are claimed as septs by some clans and clan associations as well as by tartan merchants eager to clothe as many people as possible in highland wear.

If you want to know which clan your ancestors were associated with, if any, there are only two ways. One is the slow, arduous yet satisfying work of carefully researching your ancestry backward in time, one generation in time, starting with yourself. It can take years or decades. Often does. It can be quite satisfying, if you enjoy that kind of work.

The other way, which might---and only might---prove beneficial is Y chromosome DNA testing. Men inherit Y-DNA from their fathers, just as surnames are inherited. The test is painless, takes about six weeks for results, and costs from $100 to $248, depending on how much you want to know. Family Tree DNA at www.familytreedna.com has the largest genetic genealogical database in the world, and is therefore the most likely to yield matches to yours. If you join one of their surname projects and test through them, you get a price break. The results may show anything at all. You may find no matches, you may find close matches with men whose genealogy has been traced via the paper trail back to Charlemagne. You may even find that your ancestry is not at all what you have been told it was. However, as other men test over the months and years, you will have more matches and learn more. The Beck surname project homepage is here: http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/beck/ It seems most originated in Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, England and Ireland.

I ran "Beck" thorugh Surname Profiler http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk and found that it in Britain it is most common in Anglia, the southwest coastal area of England, northwestern England and southwestern Scotland.

Good luck with your research!

[Highlander31]

I don't believe I could add anything else to the information above.

Welcome to the forum.

[Colonel MacNeal]

Wilkommen,
Can I interest you in some Liederhosen?
Prosit!

[Flag Folder]

A Warm and Sunny Welcome from the High Desert of Southern California!




Bruce
As you have already seen, you have come to the right place to learn about clans and tartans.

:ootd:

[cessna152towser]

to the Scottish Borders.

I had never heard of the surname Beck when I lived in the Glasgow area, but since I moved to the Borders twenty years ago I have found that the surname is relatively common around here and I now know several Becks.

[fudgeman]

from Charlotte, NC

[McMathTX]

Welcome from Fort Worth!
Dean

[redbeard2]

Thank you all for the warm welcome. And thanks especially to Gilmore, Wizard of BC, and Cessna152towser. Since I can trace my Beck line to 1660 Maryland, I felt that the Germanic name came from Viking origins in the NW England and from there early to the New World English colony. I have submitted samples to the Genebase DNA Ancestry Project and am waiting for final test results.

I have Davidson on my paternal grandmother's line, so I may feel more "Scottish"
with an authentic clan tartan. But thank you all very much for your thoughts.

Redbeard2

[Wolfhawk]

from the West-o-Plex
(west of Fort Worth Texas)
slainte

[socalferg]

Greetings and Welcome from SoCal