Homecoming Scotland 2009 - Post Mortem from a Scottish Perspective

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In July, Clan Turnbull came to my home town of Hawick for their international Clan Gathering, here they parade along the town's High Street in the company of our Provost Zandra Elliot.

The following week, Clan Elliot held their Gathering in the small town of Newcastleton, twenty two miles south of Hawick. Some of their members stayed in guest houses here in Hawick, including xmarker SirWilliam, seen here with me at the monument to the Battle of Hornshole.

The following weekend was the Edinburgh gathering. From a personal perspective I had been unable to raise much enthusiasm for this event. The event had received very little publicity here in Scotland and I had expected it to be nothing more than a get together of a few American based clan societies, in the case of my own clan society we had been unable to take part as a more recently established group based in eastern USA had got in first with the booking for a clan tent. However I decided I would go along on the Sunday afternoon and it did provide an opportunity for an x-marks meet, besides home based TamBlackwood and myself in this shot are USA based OldHiker, Luckey and MaelColuim, all of whom I met for the first time, and recognised them because they were wearing dandelions.

The apparent snub to Clan Cunningham by the organisers of the Edinburgh gathering had led to steps being taken to find an heir to the chieftaincy, so that the various Cunningham societies would unite and be a proper clan once again. The head of my own society and also Steve Cunningham from CCUSA who represented the clan at Edinburgh had both asked me to meet up at the Edinburgh gathering with Leslie, a Californian lawyer who had done a lot of research on the genealogy of the Earls of Glencairn and who was also working towards clan unity, which was to lead to identifying an heir to the chieftaincy and to the formation of Clan Cunningham International four weeks after the Edinburgh gathering. Arising from the Edinburgh gathering I recruited Leslie to xmarks as LAscotswoman and also one of our CCUSA hosts, Steve Cunningham, as CSCunningham.
To be continued.