Family Name and Clan

[actualrealproperscot]

If I'm correct and if my ancestry possesses the family name that matches a sept or a clan, I submit I'm empowered to wear the tartan of that clan. I understand this to be true from the Clan Chief's web site and believe I can safetly say that several if not many others on this site agree.

Is there some flaw in my assumption?

The clan system is dead, the clan system has ceased to exist for many, many years. Clan societies etc. nowdays are nothing more than a club for people with similar sounding last names. In scotland people pick out tartans by what colours and patterns they like. ANYONE can wear any clan tartan wether they are chinese, english or scottish.

[Phil]

The clan system is dead, the clan system has ceased to exist for many, many years. Clan societies etc. nowdays are nothing more than a club for people with similar sounding last names. In scotland people pick out tartans by what colours and patterns they like. ANYONE can wear any clan tartan wether they are chinese, english or scottish.

At last someone speaking sense. I know there is a strong desire among some to feel that they somehow belong to a clan but the sad truth is that they don't exist in any meaningful form and haven't since the Highland Clearances when the then clan chieftans decided that raising sheep was a more lucrative occupation and kicked all their clan members off the land. This is hardly a good reason for anyone to feel allegiance to the descendants of those who perpetrated such disgraceful acts of betrayal against their own kinsmen but time and distance have obviously proven great healers. Clan tartans are little more than a useful way of categorising the different patterns, many devised by wealthy families grown rich on the hardship of others to wear at aristocratic balls, and a particular surname can be as useful a way of deciding which one to choose as any other.

[Jock Scot]

At last someone speaking sense. I know there is a strong desire among some to feel that they somehow belong to a clan but the sad truth is that they don't exist in any meaningful form and haven't since the Highland Clearances when the then clan chieftans decided that raising sheep was a more lucrative occupation and kicked all their clan members off the land. This is hardly a good reason for anyone to feel allegiance to the descendants of those who perpetrated such disgraceful acts of betrayal against their own kinsmen but time and distance have obviously proven great healers. Clan tartans are little more than a useful way of categorising the different patterns, many devised by wealthy families grown rich on the hardship of others to wear at aristocratic balls, and a particular surname can be as useful a way of deciding which one to choose as any other.

What both Phil and A R P S have said is the truth, rather brutally put, but, in the main, nonetheless correct. I think it would help all those with Scots Highland roots to remember these facts. For me, I wear my clan tartan and only my clan tartan because I choose to, not because I have to.

[flairball]

With little exception, there is no "right" or "entitlement" to any tartan. If wearing a tartan you feel a connection to makes wearing a kilt easier than by all means make that your tartan rule, as others have done. There's nothing wrong deciding what symbolism your tartan represents either. No one is telling you that your wanting to connect with your heritage/clan is wrong, and no one should be telling the "I like the way it looks" crowd that they're wrong either.

Tartan was fashion before it was given any clan symbolism. The tartans, for the most part are owned by the mills, who are in the business of weaving, not clan indexing. A mill sells a lot more of each tartan by selling to anyone wanting the tartan, not just clan members. Yeah, economics plays a part in this debate too. This is why there are no "rights" or "entitlements" to tartan. Why would a mill limit who it could sell one of it's products to?