Census poll: What is your cultural / historical connection to the kilt?

[Johnny Selkie]

Thanks Johnny! Cool about the counties. Would love to go to Scandinavia someday but hear it is quite expensive. Perhaps when I have an opprtunity to visit the British Isles. One of my other family names was Bentsen, and I think it is they who had a farm there. Does the name Guldbrand have a translation? It seems like it is an older name?

Guld is old norwegian for gold. I think the guldbrandsen surname has german origins, but I'm not 100% sure.

[Johnny Selkie]

You're an ACTUAL Norse sea raider? Woa...

Ok, perhaps I exaggerated a tad, but what I ment to say was that some of my forefathers were vikings and not just farmers.

[ohiopiper]

I have no Scottish blood in me whatsoever. My wife, however, is a MacKay. Although she's not terribly into geneology or anything, I began wearing a kilt for piping gigs.

I play often in chuch and the people there know me as a person who happens to be a piper, not just as a piper. I was asked to play a set of hymns at another shurch and they seemed a little disappointed when I show up wearing a suit and played. I began looking into getting a kilt soon after and many (now) gigs ago.

After i started wearing a kilt, my wife began showing a little interest in her heritage. Her mother and (now late) grandmother were ecstatic that someone was wearing the family tartan.

[Dram]

Ok, perhaps I exaggerated a tad, but what I ment to say was that some of my forefathers were vikings and not just farmers.

Kind of my point: I can't ever be ceratin my Scandinavian ancestors were ever Vikings. My Norwegian ancestors came in recent times from an area of Norway that was known to be an area occupied by Vikings, however, I can not prove that they (my ancestors) descended from Vikings.

My Swedish ancestors also come from a part of Sweden (Skane) that most likely would have been a Danish Viking area...again I can't say my ancestors were not exclusively farmers there. And....(gets old I know) I also have northern German/Danish ancestry (who knows what they did, or did not do).

I am very proud of my Scandinavian heritage...however I am primarily of Welsh, Irish, and Scots heritage... not forgetting some English and a nice bit of French also.

All in all, I do have an historical connection to the kilt I suppose, (although I think my connection to the kilt is ancient ancestry). I mean I think the Scots in my heritage pre-date the kilt today, I don't think my Scottish ancestors wore kilts. They didn't wear kilts not because they were not highlanders...they just didn't wear kilts at that time. 1700 even...how much kilt wearing was going on then??? Very little, and probably nil in America. Frankly, all who I descend from here in America, just sought to get on (I do too, but seem to find things to occupy my time with genealogy and such).

[Gael Ridire]

I'm an American Heinz 57. My genealogy encompasses Irish, Scottish, German, Dutch, French, Welsh, and English. earliest ancestor came to Plymouth, MA in 1622. Last of my forefathers came in late 1820s from Ireland via a generation in Canada to Colorado in late 1850s. But when it all comes down what percent of what am I, I go with my surname which is Irish, and my mother's which is Ulster Scot. The furthest forefather back is Brian Boru, High-King of Ireland, born 941 and died 1014. Of him my DNA states I'm a direct descendant.

[thecompaqguy]

Family surname is Ferguson, which was the plantation owners' name. So my descendants took on that name. I'm from Jamaica by origin though I've always thought kilts look cool.

[kscowboy1866]

On my mothers side we are German, French, Swede, and Scot (name listed as Moon on census records). On my dads Side all I get out of him is we are Irish and I think he said Swede (Anderson) which is probably right since where his family lives there was a large concentration of swede immigrants.

Because I have my dads last name I wear the Anderson Clan badge. I've never been able to fully trace the Moons to find out what clan they belonged to but I have seen microfilm of the late 1800/early 1900 census records in the state archives showing that they listed ancestry as scottish and no other and most of em are dead or moved away years ago.

[unixken]

My paternal grandfather was born in Scotland in 1901, before his parents (he a Cormack, she a Sangster) emmigrated to New England in 1904. He is the most recent ancestor born in a country other than the U.S.

The rest of me is English and Irish, and possibly some German.

[Màrtainn]

I don't have any Scottish link whatsoever - as far as I know – but I have always admired kilts. And I love the accent, especially when it comes from the mouth of a nice, Scottish girl.
But the absence of any real link kept me from getting a kilt for myself, for a long time.

When I did my Woodbadge training, and received my Gilwell scarf with that little patch of tartan on it, I was curious about how that ended up there. Apparently a certain William F. de Bois MacLaren had something to with it (read more about it). At one point, while he was clan chief of the clan MacLaren, he declared that, since scouting is a brotherhood and thus all scouts are his family, all 'clanless' scouts were welcome to wear the MacLaren tartan.
That was for me all the justification I needed to order my first kilt!

And it will be nice to be able wear it to ceilidhs, which I think are great fun!

[CMcG]

...
When I did my Woodbadge training, and received my Gilwell scarf with that little patch of tartan on it, I was curious about how that ended up there. Apparently a certain William F. de Bois MacLaren had something to with it (read more about it). At one point, while he was clan chief of the clan MacLaren, he declared that, since scouting is a brotherhood and thus all scouts are his family, all 'clanless' scouts were welcome to wear the MacLaren tartan.
That was for me all the justification I needed to order my first kilt!

This inclusive attitude by a Scot in regards to his clan is truly commendable. Kilt on!