Are We a Clan and do we have a Tartan?

A lack of readily available and historically founded information is one cause of the uncertainty on this matter. And so every now and again a discussion, and usually disagreement, over whether or not the word 'clan' can be used correctly to describe a family from the Borders. Or to give the area it's other name 'The Lowlands'. But there is also a common assumption that 'clan', being derived from Gaelic or Irish, is a term that in Scotland belongs properly to the Highlands and Hebrides and in a setting where distinctive family territories and tartans are found. Tourist literature and many books have promoted this impression.

Nowadays the use of 'clan' in the Borders is widespread. It is applied there, as in the Highlands, to modern associations of those who share or are closely connected to a particular surname. The occasion has been repeated and the idea has spread. There is now a 'Clan Association' or 'Clan Society' they are taken very seriously at home and abroad. The view has been expressed that 'such events as Clan gatherings' do 'much for the tourist industry' in the Borders area. No doubt this is true.

'Clans' with their accompanying 'territories' and flags evoke letters to the newspapers. A correspondent to a newspaper was in no doubt. That clans had never existed in the historical past: "Of course we had no Border clans in the early days of our history, having little recognition by the Scottish Kings, but having much more kinship with the families on the English side of the Borders". There is one carefully researched book 'The Steel Bonnets' by George McDonald Fraser, in it he traces many of the Border families but in no case, did he refer to them as 'clans'. Unfortunately we are not included. In spite of total contradictions and the absence of references to historical sources such statements are made and Association names are created and used today with the utmost conviction. Because "clans" are no longer what they were long ago, the conviction is perhaps comparatively harmless.

Duncan Forbes of Culloden, writing about 1746, stated that "A Highland Clan is a set of men all bearing the same sirname, and believing themselves to be related the one to the other, and to be descended from the same common Stock". This and other of his remarks on the subject could have been expected two centuries and more earlier from people in a similar position, outside observers and Scottish government officials who then thought of certain inhabitants of the Borders and of the Highlands in the same way. The word 'clan', stemming from the Gaelic term for 'kindred' or 'children', had evidently entered the language of government respecting the Borders by 1500 and was used of the 'surnames' with an overtone of disapproval. More disparaging alternatives for the 'surname' groups also appeared, including 'band' and 'gang', but these chiefly, though not always, referred to the branches or 'graynes' which may have been more disreputable than the principal families

When applied to the Borders 'clan' and 'gang' were used almost entirely for the 'surname' groups. But the officials who employed the terms were aware that their significance was not confined to unruly groups of these districts. The loyalties and responsibilities that were fundamental to a 'surname' gave strength and impressiveness to certain actions by individuals.

The remarks quoted from newspapers and from 'clan' organisations when they were much younger and less like clubs, than some of them, raise a number of important questions. Obviously a larger question still is whether 'clans' existed at all in the Borders. The accuracy of source quotation by the correspondents must also be a matter for close attention. Elsewhere Fraser expresses the opinion that "no doubt the clan system contributed to the poverty and economic decline of the Borders". Although he must also have felt that clan organisations were very ancient there for he writes that in spite of the fact that Norman's settled extensively in the Border area, the new system never entirely displaced the old pattern of clanship and family chieftainship. While all these remarks deserve further examination The Steel Bonnets certainly argues, as any work of that sort could be expected to do, that a 'clan' type of social arrangement once prevailed widely in the Borders. However this is a claim that also requires illustration from historical records, for though it may be unobjectionable that the term should be applied to modem associations the use of 'clan' in the Borders for a real kind of social unit in the past needs some further support.

It the social structure in the Borders which came to be described, correctly or incorrectly, as a 'clan system' with which this account is concerned with. The word 'system' at any rate can be dismissed as entirely inappropriate. It is understandable that association members and others should wish to refer to favorable information from original sources and to hark back to the sixteenth century when Border 'clans' were, according to the books at least, at their operational peak. There is romance in this; but unfortunately stirring episodes of the distant past can be so attractive that they lead enthusiasts to take 'history' for granted and to accept as undeniable truth something which has merely been stated many times over. Taking History as you want it to be, often means an unrealised or unadmitted confusion of historical record with legend. Or perhaps with make-believe and an incidental effect of leaving much genuine historical material unexplored. Is that anyone who cannot find a 'clan' to which he might belong, tends to feel that his own surname and family history lack significance.

The Border Surname

Firstly, any of us who is intent upon pursuing the history of their own family will habitually think of the word 'surname' as denoting their own last name and that of previous generations from which they descend. Surnames thus defined will appear in family trees. On the other hand, however, the word was also used with a quite different meaning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; it was then applied to a group whose members shared a surname in the more familiar sense, or behaved as if they did. Such groups sometimes, but not always, had certain characteristics, which are found commonly among the clans of the north.

Part of a note found in 'The Family of Swinton by Capt. George S.C.Swinton' on page 7. "I shall begin with the ancient families in the Shire of Berwick, of the Surnames of Gordon, Nisbet, Swinton, Ridpath, and Dunce, so named by their Baronies, which lie contiguous in that shire. From which their Sirnames were taken. Who all carry three Boar's Heads of Tinetures. By which it seems that the Tradition is probably that they were originally of one Stock and Gens, and afterwards became the heads of families of different Sirnames". (Taken from a letter by The Lord Lyon's office to W.T.Ridpath.)

A somewhat confusing note, which I think, should have been Redpath. But as you know this is one way in which the variations of our name came about.

Surname Group

The principal ingredient of a 'surname' group with its 'houses' and 'graynes' was kinship. Each 'branch' or 'grayne' of a 'surname' consisted of close relatives and was sometimes no more than the members of one family. At an early stage of its formation a 'branch' family could trace its relationship to the other branches, often through a common ancestor whose line of descent, if surviving directly, constituted the principal 'house' of the surname. But as the years passed a 'branch' family might become more distant from its origins, in which case dispute within the 'surname' could more easily arise, and the 'branch' would consider itself an independent 'house' no longer bound by its ancient kinship and loyalty. The importance of kinship, through which 'friends' or relatives were attached to a particular 'surname', is apparent in numerous records of the sixteenth century.

In the central and eastern Scottish Borders there were many other localised names but not all that many 'surname' groups. While the vast majority of Border surnames, groups or otherwise, were never seen to function in cooperation and to have 'houses', 'graynes' and 'branches', there was little to prevent this happening. But it is incorrect to visualise all the country on each side of the Border in the sixteenth century as a patchwork of 'surname' areas. And while some detailed maps showing the locations of known 'surname' groups, with their branches and the places with which some conventional surnames were associated, would be useful as a guide to these aspects of Border history. Others already available that have names printed across vague, undefined districts as if they denoted clan territories merely mislead attempts to produce a more accurate picture of society at that time.

It was probably Sir Walter Scott who spread the notion that Border 'surnames' were led by 'chiefs'. For his lists of 'clan' names given in an appendix to "The Border Antiquities" he supplied 'principal' leaders. Such as 'The Laird of Applegirth' for the Jardines, but not surprisingly, since they do not seem to have had them, many 'surnames' had to be satisfied with 'chief unknown'. This was to impose upon Border families a kind of primitive tribal organisation. Whereby an erroneous impression of pre 1600 Border society was created and unfortunately has remained to the present time.

Scott's observations on Border 'clans' might draw the attention of family historians to two more important aspects of 'surname' groups. The first reveals a good deal about the possible antiquity of a group, the second about the position and status of its 'principal'.

A 'surname' could develop with remarkable speed. Add in the other 'houses' immediately related. How? Add in the adjoining neighbourhood, and it will be evident not only that a very large 'surname' group occupied and dominated a wide extent of country. But also that it could take less than a century to form. The growth of a 'surname' depended upon the existence, in each of no more than two or three generations, numerous sons, among whom the land would be divided and subdivided, and of a few daughters who could make advantageous marriages even across the Border.

Given the short length of time required that a great 'surname' could emerge, there is no need to assume that 'surname' groups had existed for hundreds of years or that they were direct descendants of some prehistoric tribal pattern of antiquity. It would for instance be reasonable to choose a starting date with the first recorded Redpath, William De Redpath, 1200. This is not to say that the 'surname' derived nothing from the kind of society that existed in the Borders before 1100 but such a possible connection is open to disagreement. It has been argued that the localised groups of people sharing in due course the same surname owe something to the prehistoric structure of native tribes. In which a king or leading figure appears to have ruled over a band of followers attached to him by kinship and by a range of customary services and duties. Fraser used the words 'tribe' and 'tribal' quite freely and more recently (1992) George Rosie, seeming to equate 'clans' and 'tribes', wrote "that while there are five clan museums and heritage centres there are far more claming to be a clan". On the other hand Rae gave a different emphasis: "The Border kinship groups of the sixteenth century, known as 'surnames', were not so much survivals of primitive tribal units as the result of processes in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. When surnames (literally) emerged; the earliest recorded use of the word 'surname' in this sense appears to have been in 1498 when it was used to denote certain English Border groups". Writing of the kinship groups Rae also remarked that "They were ... remarkably similar to the highland 'clans' which developed during the same period for much the same reason ... The surnames of the Scottish Borders were organised social units held together by family ties". English comments on the subject have also amounted to much of the same thing. There is also a difference of opinion on the matter of similarity to clans. A widely held view is that Border kinship groups in Scotland and England were a self-protective response to general insecurity and the lack of an effective legal system.

The Principal Surname

The antiquity of a 'surname' as well as the occasion of its existence can be related to the presence of a 'principal'. In many a group on the Scottish side at least the principal was a laird, his estate varying in size from a few arable and pasture acres to large tracts of upland and wild hill. The role of 'laird' seems often to have determined the person or family who would subsequently be recognised as 'principal' of a 'surname' when it emerged. Lairds were individuals who possessed title to their property though often holding it of a noble superior rather than of the crown. And because they were landowners, lairds were the creators of a 'surname' by granting portions of their estates to close relatives who would then by the same method build up their own branches. Thus as the main line of Redpaths died out, becoming known as 'of that Ilk' (Thomas Redpath d.1634 m Elizabeth Lauder sold the Redpath estates between 1611 - 19). It was the junior line that gave rise to eventual branches, such as Parkwalls, which grew to be more powerful than the parent line.

In this way the 'surnames' were generally compatible with, and perhaps made possible by, the feudal system of tenure. But if central government and the superiors were weak or remote and the lairds were so inclined, the 'surname' could act out of uncontrolled self-interest and with a marked degree of independence. Not every Border laird of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was 'principal' of a 'surname', and not every 'surname' had one, distinct 'principal'.

It was common for a person of any ordinary surname to bind himself and others loyal to him to the 'principal' of a 'surname' either on a particular occasion or for a long period. This was called a "Bond of Manrent". By which he undertook "to be faithful and true in his service and take their part with my kyne, freyndins, part-takearis and thai that will do for me, in all actions and quarrels as often as required". Theses are the familiar terms with which a man attaches himself and those connected to him by agreement to the 'principal' of a 'surname'. The significance of responsibility for those so associated, appears regularly as essential elements in the story of the Lowland society prior to 1600. It was these elements that the principals and lairds were expected by government to keep all others for whom they held responsible were quiet and peaceful, in the unruly 1500s.

The loyalties and responsibilities therein were no doubt held dear by virtually all groups and were as important in the ordinary daily routine of farming as in matters of dispute or in warfare. Attachment to the leader of a 'surname', or to any landowner and master was moreover not left to kinship and agreements such as Bonds of Manrent only. More commonly it was achieved through tenancy, especially through that form of hereditary occupation of land known as 'kindly tenancy' or possession by a 'kindness'. This meant that a landowner allowed to someone who was often a relative either by blood or marriage tenancy of a portion of his estate without a fixed term lease. The tenant of course had no title to his land but could hand it on to his heirs and successors, a freedom which later generations sometimes took for granted in the belief that, their families having been long in possession, they could not be shifted. On this basis the kindly tenant as well as the laird with a charter as title might build a strong, stone house, particularly if he was in fact a leading figure and perhaps even a landowner of an entirely different name. And occasionally if they were lucky the tenancy might be converted to ownership. More often however the actual landowner preferred to keep his kindly tenants since they provided the loyal support and services he needed in times of unrest.

Leases were comparatively rare and possibly reserved for special relationships. Kindly tenancy was a practical means of strengthening and expanding 'surname' ties and could exist without question so long as men rather than money were the chief benefits of possessing land.

Are we a Clan?

So what do you now think? For I believe that chiefs, captains and clans belong to the Highlands, and to official papers why they were words worth adopting as both convenient and appropriate. But not to the family structure of the Border people our ancestors.

The Gordons became the donimant family in the area. But due to services made to Robert the Bruce in 1320 he gave them the forfeited lands of the Cummings at Strathbogie in Aberdeenshire. In the mean time another family Hume/Home were accumulating land through good marriages. Such as that to a 13th-century descendant of the Northumbrian Earl Gospatrick. By further marriages their lands extended widely over the east Borderland which after the Gordons left ment they became the donimant family. Just as they still are in the area today.

Which now only leaves the question of a tartan. Because both Nesbitt and Greenlaw are Septs of the Hume/Home I believe we are within our rights to wear that tartan, just as the Swintons could. However, I'll leave you to decide for yourself.

As for myself, well some new infomation form a book called "Scots Kith & Kin" it states that our name is Lauderdale (Earlston). Through speaking with the Scottish Tarttan Authority I was told that we can wear the District tartan of TWEEDSIDE

If you wish to have a look samples can be found here

The Tartans

	Ancient Red				Ancient
	OLD or ANCIENT - These are the softer & lighter colours produced by the natural dyes made with vegetable, animal & mineral matter, that were in use before 1860. For instance, the navy and red in a Modern tartan would be a medium blue and orange in Ancient colors.
	Dress				Modern Dress
	DRESS - Dress tartans were used for more formal occasions and are sometimes made by changing the background colour of a clan tartan, usually to white. Dress tartans can also be red dominant or even yellow.
	Muted Red				Muted
	MUTED -Muted tartans are a recent development using softer shades of the Modern colours that still retain a rich tone. For instance, the navy of the Modern tartan is a dusty blue in the Muted tones, and the hunter green is a deep sage. They are quite elegant.
			WEATHERED -Designed to look like the fabric has been left exposed to sun and rain for a long time. The colours are very faded.
			MODERN - These are the bright, rich colours that most people associate with the Scottish Tartan--navy blue, scarlet, hunter green. They were woven after the development of aniline dyes in 1860, and are still the most popular today.
			HUNTING - Hunting tartans were used for sport or everyday wear. Dark colours were predominant so the wearer would blend in with the environment. They typically use green & blue, sometimes brown, with small amounts of the brighter colours.

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