What clan!!!

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Lincoln would be an extremely uncommon first name prior to 1865, and virtually unheard of as a first name among Scots at that time. Here's what we DON'T know:

1) we don't know where the photo was taken.
2) we don't know what "65" means.
3) we don't know who wrote on the back of the photo.

If we assume the photo was taken in New York in 1865 then we can also assume the man was born in 1825 since he looks about 40. He may or may not have been born in Scotland, but in either case it is highly unlikely that he would have been christened "Lincoln" as a first name.

Skauwt makes a good case for the "R" possibly being a "K", although I am not entirely convinced: I would expect "CH" instead of "K" to be used in spelling "Christie/Kristie", a fairly common Scottish name.

The first letter in the first word is the puzzler: "I", "G", "J", or "L" are all possibilities. And it is also possible that the first word is the name of the woman-- Linda-- and--Rustie, written by a cousin or sister, or some other family member, sometime after 1865...

In the end, it is all speculation.

[St. Amish]

I would expect "CH" instead of "K" to be used in spelling "Christie/Kristie", a fairly common Scottish name.

I think you may be overlooking that uniform spelling is a fairly new development. "Christie" could have been spelled any number of ways, and it would make sense to spell it with a "K" if you were spelling phonetically.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I think you may be overlooking that uniform spelling is a fairly new development. "Christie" could have been spelled any number of ways, and it would make sense to spell it with a "K" if you were spelling phonetically.

By the 1860s spelling was pretty uniform throughout the USA and Scotland. This was especially true with the middle-classes (ie: anyone who had attended school). Most people who could write could also spell, especially those who lived in cities and were affluent enough to be able to afford the luxury of being photographed in highland attire.

What we are looking at is a stiff bit of cardboard that had a photo pasted on one side and an inscription of sorts scrawled on the back. All we've seen is the photo on the front-- the rest of the card, which would have had the details of who took the photograph, and where the studio was located, have been edited out, which is unfortunate as we don't know if the photo was taken in Toronto or Tasmania, Crook of Devon or Chicago.

Looking at the back of the photo I am led to believe that the writing is (1) by a single hand-- it would be highly unusual for two different people to write on the back of a photo-- next, (2) written by "Rustie", because of the confidence of that word when compared to the word(s) that precede it-- I would also suspect that the person who wrote this was either (3) elderly, or unused to writing, or both, due to the poorly formed letters in the cursive script of the first word, and the almost awkward form of the numbers "65".

What all this graphology has to do with kilts is totally beyond me, but it does seem to defeat the tedium of what is another-wise slow kilt news day.

[St. Amish]

By the 1860s spelling was pretty uniform throughout the USA and Scotland.

Not true.

The American Anthropologist printed a symposium on the subject in March 1893. It had noted considerable variations in the spelling of English words. Moreover, delegates to the symposium heard how, of 1,972 failures to pass the civil service examination in Britain, 1,866 had failed because of poor spelling. The thrust of the symposium was that people spelled badly because English spelling was arbitrary and inconsistent.

Francis A. March noted in the History of Spelling Reform (1893) how the word "could" was "a markt exampl of unpardonabl spelling; the "l" is a sheer blunder, the "ou" has a wrong sound."

[SteveB]

The manner of dress and pose is something that was popular in the 1860's on this side of the ocean. American fascination with the feather and cap has nothing to do with being a chief. It was worn by the groom at a wedding here as a symbol of heading his own family.
As far as spelling and writing goes. All one needs to do is sit down with the registers of birth, marriage and death records at the state archives for about two hours and realize that the standardization of spelling for official records and penmanship were a severe challenge until the typewriter came into common use for record keeping. Here in Massachusetts I spend many hours pouring over the 1841 to 1910 registers to find that spelling started to become "standard" about 1890 and penmanship was never the same from year to year. On many an occasion a persons name changed spelling with every event. Born McNeilly, married as MacNeily, died as McNeally. Gravestone reads MacNeilly. All for the same person, just many different clerks, and the gent did not read or write, as the clerk had to note his "mark". I won't even go into the butcher job that my German great-grandmother's name went through (she did not speak English).
There is a problem with the first letter being written as a Palmer method "Q".
a first impression was Jenkins / Kristie or Rustie 65. It would help if there is any other items that came with the photo, such as the photographer's name or studio. and the signature of the colour artist. If this was in a frame, what kind of frame? The colours that appear in the gents "tartan" do not seem to come up with a tartan name easily in the Tartans Authority database. There are many close but nothing that is a dead on match.
Good luck with identifying this couple.

[BoldHighlander]

On many an occasion a persons name changed spelling with every event. Born McNeilly, married as MacNeily, died as McNeally. Gravestone reads MacNeilly. All for the same person, just many different clerks, and the gent did not read or write, as the clerk had to note his "mark". I won't even go into the butcher job that my German great-grandmother's name went through (she did not speak English).

I can relate Steve. One of my own ancestors came to this country in 1740 with his named spelled as Scoby. By late 1700's in Kentucky, land records have it as Scobie. By the census of 1800 (more or less) it was Scobee. Incidentally, his two sons who lived nearby had their name spelled as Scobie on the same census!

[O'Callaghan]

I don't have an opinion on what the inscription says, but I think that spelling was more uniform (and literacy higher) in the old world than the new, at least at that time. Hence, Rathdown is probably right if he were talking about Scotland, but not so much concerning the USA. He does raise another important point, though, that literacy was better in the cities, although in the modern day probably the opposite is true.