I found a predominant Clan to accociate myself with!

**Sir Grunt** · 10th March 09, 01:17 PM

Your story seems very close to my own. I have found that my family name of Hill is associated with the Grampain District( I belive that is what i read on a finder). so I'm off to the races I go.
Though I am still trying to find out more of the Name Downing. Being from the hills in KY , I could see the spelling and the pronunciation could have changed some over time.

**gilmore** · 10th March 09, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by Sir Grunt

Your story seems very close to my own. I have found that my family name of Hill is associated with the Grampain District( I belive that is what i read on a finder). so I'm off to the races I go.
Though I am still trying to find out more of the Name Downing. Being from the hills in KY , I could see the spelling and the pronunciation could have changed some over time.

According to Surname Profiler http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/Surnames.aspx -the most reliable thing of its kind that I have seen yet as to locations of Welsh, Scots and English surnames---Hill originates mostly in southwest England, in Cornwall and Devon and environs, with some around the Hereford, Worchester, Dudley as well as Doncaster areas. Almost none are in Scotland.

Downing is also an English name, being found in Cornwall and the southwest, and also like Hill in the Midlands near the Welsh border and Doncaster, as well as in Anglia.

**Bugbear** · 10th March 09, 03:13 PM

I do seem to recall something about the Welsh having a tartan or two now a days.

**Sir Grunt** · 10th March 09, 05:46 PM

Thanks Gill mOre and Ted Crocker,
I have seen them as well and well I am at a loss, more due to most of the family hystory get lost in KY due to county fires and loss of paper but still working at it.
Tha Mac Thomas Clan at one time we weree talking and could show a beter line . but I found out that my Dad is not a thomas by blood only by adoption and marrage.
It is dificult some time to find what ya need but it does come to you whn you least ask for it.

**Colonel MacNeal** · 13th March 09, 10:05 PM

I was very happy with my family tree until I found a Kennedy in it. Maybe why I'm such a good swimmer though.

**Bugbear** · 13th March 09, 11:49 PM

Originally Posted by Sir Grunt

Thanks Gill mOre and Ted Crocker,
I have seen them as well and well I am at a loss, more due to most of the family hystory get lost in KY due to county fires and loss of paper but still working at it.
Tha Mac Thomas Clan at one time we weree talking and could show a beter line . but I found out that my Dad is not a thomas by blood only by adoption and marrage.
It is dificult some time to find what ya need but it does come to you whn you least ask for it.

Yep, it sure can. Mine is not a clan tartan, but I didn't even know it existed at first. I thought about it a lot, and I had been planning on a different tartan, but then it was just made clear to me.

When I did know it was my tartan, I was able to put that searching to rest, and now I can focus on all the other things like saving up several fist fulls of kilt money.

That doesn't mean that I won't get a kilt in the other tartan some day, but I don't have to worry or think about that right now... It's brought peace to the tartan maddness.

**kypnkilt** · 14th March 09, 12:51 PM

I can trace my family to the Dumfries area of Scotland dated 1785. Many of them crossed the pond in the 1820's in the N. Carolina area. Many of my Ancestors went to Ireland (Galway area) to be stone masons and shipwrights.

Welcome to the family!