I Joined my clan society

[gilmore]

And your evidence he did not follow this exact procedure is...?

Quit being so argumentative with those trying to learn their own family's history. Every time one of these posts shows up, you're pishing all over it and it has become more than tiresome.

I have no idea what procedures the poster followed.

I don't see how pointing out a few well-accepted facts is being argumentative.

It is a fact that many lists of clan septs are wildly inaccurate. It is a fact that tartan merchants use these lists to sell merchandise.

My problem is with the statement "if you are interested in your family history I would say the first step to a larger world would be to join your clan society," which is quite unrealistic. The standard and accepted practice of genealogical research is starting with one's immediate family and working backward, generation by generation. Trying to take short cuts almost always leads to trouble at some point in the future. (The one exception is the possibility of DNA testing's being helpful.)

Nor do I have problems with people joining clan societies. I once joined one myself. But face it, they are simply organizations for people who happen to bear the same surname, through accidents of birth and history.

I don't have problems with people making claims to their friends and others about their clans, their ancestry, their relatives, their right to wear certain tartans, etc, if it makes them feel good.

My problem is with these claims and methodologies being taken seriously, passed on to those of us doing serious genealogical work, and wasting our time.

If I wanted to be argumentative and puncture a few Brigadoonish fantasies, I would insist that the vast majority of Scots were Lowlanders descended from Anglo-Saxon-Jute Northumbrians who never spoke a word of Gaelic, were never part of the clan system, whose surnames were never associated with a clan, and looked down on the Highland clans as uncouth barbarians. But I wont.