How my tartan taste has changed

[Alan H]

Alan, If you have some French-Canadian background, than you already have a connection to the Hudson Bay tartan. Not only does Quebec border Hudson Bay, but a lot of Canada's history include both French Canadians and the Hudson Bay. If you can date the French Canadian side back to 1600 something, than it is highly unlikely that your ancestors were not touched by the HBC in someway.

I have LOT of French-Canadian background! laughing and while I'm interested in that heritage and I have several geneology works done by people in the family, I even have the original birth record of my G.G. Grandmother, Marcelline Hebert, which dates from around 1860 in Quebec, that's not what I FEEL. The genetic connections with Canada and Quebec are strong, no question about it. But I don't FEEL them, which makes no logical sense because that's my fathers family, and I was much closer to my father than to my mother.

My paternal grandmother, Myrtle Snyder, is from Adie, North Carolina. Way, way back in her roots are a couple of Brysons.....Scots who fought for the US in the Revolutionary war. The Brysons are a sept of the MacFarlanes. The MacFarlane clan is very active out here in California, and I have a connection to them that's just as valid as my connection to the MacNaughtons. It's just that I "found" the MacNaughtons first, and Martha McKnight is on my mothers side and the MacFarlane connection is......

I just don't FEEL it.

My mother was a troublesome woman in many ways, though she loved me very much and she was a loyal and caring mother. But in my householdas I was growing up, it was always my mothers history that was talked about. It was HER silver in the cabinet, it was HER ancestors paintings on the walls. HER family had history, HER family was "American Aristocracy" because of her Revolutionary War ancestry. Nobody knew or cared about my fathers family background until long after mom died. So I grew up hearing about Halls. I only realized I had the McKnight connection until after I got interested in kilts (before I learned about Myrtle's geneology). I pulled out my grandmothers family tree that she painstakingly put together in the 1940's to document her membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. There, way back in the late 1700's, was Martha McKnight. Since I've been indoctrinated since birth about my mothers family history, that's what in my psyche.

I dearly wish I had discovered Myrtle Snyders Revolutionary War veteran ancestors while my mother and father were alive, but that's another discussion.

Anyway, with Martha McKnight and her grandfather John who emigrated from Ulster in 1733, I had a Scottish connection, and turns out that the MacNaughtons are locally active, so I was all set. That's what I've stuck with, even though it makes no more logical sense to wear MacNaughton and be a member of that clan than it does to sign up with the MacFarlanes. I just FEEL it more strongly.

Upshot is, none of my reasoning about having a connection to a tartan that I FEEL makes logical sense, it's simply and entirely a matter of how I FEEL. I could accumulate 40 tartan kilts in tartans to which I have "a connection", but I have no need to do so. For me to do that would just be an unhealthy obsession and waste of money. I'm not saying that it is so, for others. Hamish has 90 kilts. Ron has 50+. That's great! If they enjoy them and have fun with it, then good for them. But for me to accumulate 30 or 40 or 50 kilts just because I have the money and I can come up with "a connection" would feel wasteful to me.


Here's a partial list of all the tartans that I know of that I have some sort of "connection" to.

MacNaughton Modern
MacNaughton weathered
MacNaughton dress
Hall
MacFarlane Modern
MacFarlane Weathered
MacFarlane Hunting
USA Bicentennial
American Heritage Tartan
California Modern
California weathered
Maple Leaf district Tartan
Quebec district tartan
British Columbia district tartan
Ulster District tartan
Cork District tartan

Those are from direct verifiable family heritage, or where I live. Here are other tartans that I have a "connection" to via family history, or personal convictions.

US Navy tartan...Edzell (I have many ancestors, including my Dad that served in the US navy. )
US Army... (Grandpa LLoyd was an army doctor in WWI, and Grandpa Marcel was in the "spruce Division" logging Washington forests for the Army in WWI)
Capercaillie...because of my environmental convictions
X-Marks the Scot
California Department of Forestry Tartan...(Joans Grandfather, Marc Sr. spent 35 years in the California Dept. of Forestry)


The Scottish Heritage Tartan
All Ireland Green
All Ireland Red
All Ireland Blue (since the MacNaughtons are just as much an Irish family, now, as a Scottish one, and John McKnight lived in Ireland for fifteen years before he emigrated to the Colonies.)

and now as Colin has pointed out, the absolutely wonderful Hudson Bay Company tartan. And solid-color Saffron, because of the Irish connection.

That's 26 tartans.....27 kilts, which I can justifiably claim a "connection" to. For me to own a kilt in all 27 of those possibilities would be ridiculous, FOR ME. I'm not saying that my standards for me apply to anyone else. If I were to spend the money on a tank in each and every one of those tartans, it would be a wretched amount of money, and IMHO, for me, would be a waste. It would be wrong.

So FOR ME, I don't need to go "looking" for connections to wear tartans. There are lots of them. So I find myself wanting to stick to the ones that really matter to me, the ones that I truly FEEL, and not just ones that look good or I just "happen" to have a connection to. I can't see going and buying Stillwater Kilts newest offering just because it's "there" any more, though I certainly don't knock any of you who DO buy lots of kilts from Jerry!

Mind you, I'm gonna keep wearing Holyrood, just 'cause I like it! Oh and if someone got me an Edzell tartan kilt for Christmas, I wouldn't turn up my nose, eh?

[Alan H]

The corollary to this emphasis on how I FEEL about a connection to a tartan, I would also say that I love, absolutely love the idea of handing down a kilt to my son, if I had one. I would love to BE the son that had a kilt handed down TO me!

You who have such things, or have a son are blessed!

The other corollary is that I am becoming pickier about WHO MAKES my kilts. I want that connection that I feel. I am not inclined to purchase a kilt from a random kiltmaker any more. OK, I might buy a knockaround tartan kilt for working out in, from "off the hook" but any "nice" kilt I wear in the future will be made by Rocky from USA Kilts, or Steve at Freedom kilts, or Barb.....or way2fractious...... because I feel a connection to those kiltmakers.

Kilts, at least my "nice" ones have become personal objects with memories, connections and implications for me.....and not just another garment like a pair of blue jeans. I have "blue jeans" kilts, too, but the ones that COUNT are different.

And now I think I've written enough in this thread and will leave it to others to continue, or not.

[CameronTaylor]

Hmmm, maybe there's a connection to Hebertville, PQ ???
(Nice town except for that one punk that got fired, hope he left town after that)


CT - "ay-bur-veel"

[B. Somm]

Well, in August, 2006, Locharron designed and started weaving the capercaillie tartan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/s...nd/5258248.stm

Which you can see here, adorning the very attractive frame of Miss Scotland, 2006.

Wow! They do make kilts for the lasses! Now if I just wasn't so short & stubby, I just might could pull off the look! Oh well, maybe in my next life I'll get to be tall & thin!

*sigh*

And such a neat looking tartan too!

B.


(I think I'd actually be torn on how I would choose a tartan. I would love to have a Burns tartan, but the colors really wouldn't look good on me, as I do best with dark colors. A lot of the tartans/colors that mean something to me wouldn't look good on me, so I'd probably have to go with something that was pleasing to MY eye, as well as made in darker colors.)

[Ancienne Alliance]

The corollary to this emphasis on how I FEEL about a connection to a tartan, I would also say that I love, absolutely love the idea of handing down a kilt to my son, if I had one. I would love to BE the son that had a kilt handed down TO me!

You who have such things, or have a son are blessed!

Kilts, at least my "nice" ones have become personal objects with memories, connections and implications for me
.

Dear Alan,
I sincerely enjoyed reading this. It is honest , deep going material.
You see, I happen to be the son of a long line of sturdy Jacobite survivors for whom rememberance of the roots are essential, and I fully agree with this in theory !
The problem is, my dad was'nt really a born pedagogue and he forced me to wear the kilt in an inapropriate period of time and country (outside of Scotland) the result was that I got rid of his kilt when he gave it to me when I was 14.
It's practically a miracle if I am kilted today.
I guess that , ultimately, DNA is stronger than the rest.
So pass it down if you can, gentlemen, but please, do it well .... avec délicatesse.

Best,

Robert