Clansman's Badge

[ThistleDown]

One of the pitfalls for North American researchers is the temptation to attribute things that are factual in their own families to people of the past and then off they go wandering in that direction. I suppose this tendency is due to a cultural familiarity with only the recent past. Colour of eyes or hair, does pass on from generation to generation, of course, but mannerisms don't carry much beyond the immediate family member from whom they are learned.