Author Topic: Shanks Tartan  (Read 18518 times)

Offline nineyman

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Shanks Tartan
« on: Friday 08 June 12 13:25 BST (UK) »
Hi everyone
I am hoping to contact anyone who is or has researched the shanks family, primarily of the Linlithgow area, christian names include William john Alexander, George and Archibald. I am hoping to find the legal Tartan attached to the name
Thanks in advance for any info

Son of Nineyman
Somerset & Devon  Johnson, Cook, Mappledoram,Bevan, Dudridge, Dixon
Sussex  Dyer Bishop Hodges Luxford
Lancashire  Fullard/Fulland Hendley
Scotland. Shanks

Offline alys

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #1 on: Friday 08 June 12 14:48 BST (UK) »
This site has a list of all registered tartans http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk.  It is maintained by the National Registers of Scotland.  There doesn't appear to be a Shanks tartan registered yet, but you can obtain from them advice on designing and submitting an application for registration.
Smellie from Gartshore to New Monkland;  Sneddon from Polmont to New Monkland;  Lumsden, Bo'ness to Lanarkshire;  Black, McCallum, Wotherspoon at New Monkland;  Fyfe at  Cambuslang;  Currie, Hamilton on Arran; Gilchrist, Brown, Campbell on Islay

Offline apanderson

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #2 on: Friday 08 June 12 14:59 BST (UK) »
Nineyman - have a look at this thread: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,600795.0.html

The excellent and comprehansive reply by 'Forfarian' very recently might give a you a better understanding of what the tartan issue is all about.

Anne

Offline nineyman

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #3 on: Friday 08 June 12 15:12 BST (UK) »
Malkie, thank you for clarifying your position and for the web address.

Alys thank you for checking the register.

Anne I followed the link and indeed do have a better understanding of the tartan issue, we have traced the shanks line to 1640 and found several named clan connections through marriage, so in theory a living shanks could wear "rightfully" any of the named clans in her tree.

Thank you all

Dick
Somerset & Devon  Johnson, Cook, Mappledoram,Bevan, Dudridge, Dixon
Sussex  Dyer Bishop Hodges Luxford
Lancashire  Fullard/Fulland Hendley
Scotland. Shanks


Offline sancti

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #4 on: Friday 08 June 12 17:46 BST (UK) »
Dick, if your ancestors go back to 1640 in the Linlithgow area then I doubt any of them would have came across 'clan tartan'

If you like the look of a tartan then wear that one, there is no "rightfully" or "wrongfully"  ;) ;D

Online Forfarian

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #5 on: Saturday 09 June 12 00:06 BST (UK) »
nineyman, you are, quite honestly, on a wild goose chase.

I repeat what I said in the thread Anne referred to: "Most Lowland Scots in the 15th, 16th or 17th centuries probably regarded Highlanders as dangerous savages and would have been horrified at any suggestion that they were connected in any way to a Highland clan."

The surname Shanks, according to G F Black's The Surnames of Scotland is of territorial origin, from Midlothian. It is very definitely Lowland and to the best of my knowledge and belief there is no Shanks tartan.

sancti is absolutely right. If you want to wear tartan, pick a pattern you like and get one with it. There are no laws about entitlement to wear a tartan, and no-one will be in the least concerned whether or not you have any connection to the clan, family, district or organisation whose tartan you are wearing, assuming they can actually name it, which is doubtful.

If you do have ancestresses with a Highland surname, or the surname of a Lowland or Border family which has adopted a tartan along with the trappings of a clan, you can use those names to narrow down your choice from among the thousands of available tartans.

Just don't, please, do what I once saw: a man dressed from head to ankle in Dress MacMillan tartan: kilt, waistcoat, jacket, plaid*, bonnet, tie and matching socks. The only things he was wearing that weren't Dress MacMillan were his shirt and shoes; in my opinion that was, to put it mildly, overdoing it.

*For the benefit of anyone who thinks that the word 'plaid' means 'checked (or even chequered) cloth': in Scotland, it doesn't. The cloth is called tartan. A plaid is a garment made of tartan. It can be either a huge voluminous affair like a cloak, such as is worn by a piper in full regalia, or a much smaller garment, like a short cloak, worn over a jacket.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline hdw

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #6 on: Saturday 09 June 12 19:43 BST (UK) »
Well said, everybody who has tried to explain the truth about tartans. It's a sensitive issue, and many people from the Scottish "diaspora" in North America and the Antipodes are disappointed to learn that native Scots don't take the tartan thing as seriously as they do themselves. In New Zealand they have a weird ceremony called the Kirkin' o' the Tartan which doesn't correspond to anything that has ever happened in Scotland. The powers-that-be in Scotland, e.g. tourist boards and celebrities, bear a lot of responsibility for hyping up the whole tartan, kilts and whisky thing as Scotland's "brand".

If it's any consolation, individuals and organisations are perfectly free to design their own distinctive tartan and have it "approved". Believe it or not, there is a Singh tartan now which was designed by a prominent Scottish-Sikh family for their own use. My English mother-in-law had Scottish ancestors called Rollo and is intensely proud of her Rollo tartan skirt. There's nothing wrong in enjoying wearing tartan clothes as long as you don't imagine that they are the sort of garments your Lowland ancestors would have worn.

I once had my work cut out persuading a Canadian attorney, whose Davidson ancestors were fishermen in my home village in east Fife, that his Davidsons had nothing to do with the so-called Clan Davidson in Inverness-shire who were involved in the last clan battle in Scotland. He knew all about Highland history but hadn't a clue about the reality of life in the Lowlands and the fact that different unrelated families all over Scotland might bear the same surname.

Harry (in Lowland non-tartan-wearing Edinburgh)

Offline Flattybasher9

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #7 on: Saturday 09 June 12 19:59 BST (UK) »
" Believe it or not, there is a Singh tartan now which was designed by a prominent Scottish-Sikh family for their own use."

The earliest tartan known is circa 3,000 years old. It was found in archiological excavations in Northern Tibet/ Mongolia. I posted this link already, but the post in which it was posted was removed by one of the mods.

http://www.tartansauthority.com/tartan/the-birth-of-tartan

Regards

Malky

Online Forfarian

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Re: Shanks Tartan
« Reply #8 on: Saturday 09 June 12 22:48 BST (UK) »
[/i]
The earliest tartan known is circa 3,000 years old.

True; but none of the current setts dates back to before the 18th century, apart from the 'Culloden' tartan, which was, I understand, dug up on the battlefield after being bleached by the bog for a couple of centuries.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.