Tartan-wearing conventions among Scots

[The Guy in the Kilt at UC]

OK...I'm going to ask a newbie question here. Is there a good resource out there to research surnames as they relate to clan affiliations. It is my understanding that my surname is of English origins...Bavis now, but originally perhaps Baevis or something similar. It's a very uncommon name so I would never expect to find it on a list. There are some other family names (it seems mostly on my wife's side of the family) that I have found Tartans for such as Cooper and Young. I'd be willing to bet that somewhere a Webb (also English) would appear somewhere in a name list, though I haven't seen it as a pattern on any tartan sites. I guess I've already made up my mind to buy kilts that have some signifcance to my career of that I just find attractive. I have plans to get an Army Tartan kilt at some point...but I just recently put a downpayment on a Young Tartan kilt that has a combination of my specific Army branch colors in the weave. Should I be shunned for wanting to wear a kilt if I can't verify any Scottish heritage??

No, no, no. Kilts and the army go hand in hand. So what if you don't have Scottish ancestry. Wear your Army kilt with pride.

[beowulf67]

There may be wishful American Davidsons sporting the tartan whose forebears came from Coventry, England.

There may also be wishful American Davidsons whose Davis ancestors originated in Wales, moved to Scotland and then came to America.

Should I be shunned for wanting to wear a kilt if I can't verify any Scottish heritage??

Yea verily thou shalt not only be shunned but shall also be hunted down by the Kilt Police and flogged with fresh trout. And the Lord did grin.

Ok, slightly more seriously there has been a lot of great advice on this thread. If you can't find a direct family connection but have a connection to a district or military service feel free to wear a tartan associated with those.
(Or any other tartan you like)

When I wore my kilt out and about in Scotland last month I had several people ask if I had Scottish ancestors and they seemed happy that I did, but I don't think they would have been terribly upset if I had said No. Or at least they would have hidden it well.

[O'Callaghan]

There may also be wishful American Davidsons whose Davis ancestors originated in Wales, moved to Scotland and then came to America.

There's a limit to how exhaustive you can expect people to be, though. For most people, if your forebear had the clan name and came from Scotland that's close enough. I suppose for some if they had the name and you don't know WTH they came from that might be close enough too, but personally I wouldn't go that far unless the name were clearly Gaelic in origin, which Davidson isn't.

I doubt that very many people, here or elsewhere, have their family tree so clearly mapped out that they can trace back to an ancestor who lived in the right county, at least if they have to go very far back. As it happens, I can trace back to Callaghans who actually lived in County Cork, Ireland, certainly to when they left Ireland in the 19th century, and tentatively another century before that. Very little of that was my own work, but it is a lot of work, and not many people either have the inclination or perhaps even all the data they need to do it.