I am a proud descendent MacDonald of Sleat. Now my true branch is MacDonald of Lochalsh. However, that branch was absorbed by Sleat due to the unfortunate demise of Alexander of Lochalsh and no sons to take his place.

While I am proud of being of Sleat, I wish to honor my of Lochalsh heritage. Now Celestine MacDonald of Lochalsh was heir to Ross. So a friend and I were discussing taking the Ross tartan as a base and creating a MacDonald of Lochalsh tartan. I am intending to contact the Chief of the MacDonald of Sleat and informing him of what I am doing (can't hurt to have a clan chief in your corner could it?).

So I guess my questions are -

1) Is it worth it to do this for what might be a small percentage of people who claim of Lochalsh as their heritage?

2) Would using the Ross tartan as a base be stepping on too many toes? I don't intend to use their tartan as my own but as a base for the colors, remove some and add others to make it original.

3) Would contacting the Chief of MacDonald of Sleat be worth it or a good idea?

4) This is for the historians who might know or fathom a guess, was there ever a tartan for MacDonald of Lochalsh which would make this whole exercise moot?

Thanks again in advance to the great rabble.