The family tartan tie handed down by your great great grandfather is predominantly red, but my website tells you your clan tartan is mostly green. So, it would be easy to think great great grandad had the right of it, and I am wrong. Or maybe GGG favoured the wee dram too much, and I've got it right. Well, it's also possible we are both right, by degrees.
First,
understand that there are Scottish clans, and family names associated with those clans. If a family or lesser clan came under the protection of a clan, it assumed the tartan of that more dominant clan.
Example: Surnames associated with Clan MacLachlan, historically called septs, are Ewan, Ewen, Ewing, Gilchrist, Lachlan, Lauchlan, MacEwan, MacEwen, MacGilchrist.
Second, within the region under the control of a clan there could have been geographically denoted clans.
Example: Within Clan Campbell, a large dominant clan, there is also Clan Campbell of Breadalbane, Clan Campbell of Cawdor, and Clan Campbell of Loudoun.
So, over time any number of tartans have been associated with a modern surname. It gets further complicated when you understand how tartans become "official."
Historically, the Court of the Lord Lyon was responsible for the record of clan tartans. Oftentimes, though, the sources for those tartans was remarkably unofficial, as was the case for the Clan Morrison tartan registered with the U.K. government's Scottish Register of Tartans.
"The official Morrison clan tartan was recorded by Lord Lyon on 3rd January 1968, from a piece of tartan found in an old Morrison family bible. The bible contained a hand written reference to the tartan and was dated 1747, one year after the proscription of Highland dress. The discovery was made during the demolition of a Black House on Lewis in 1935. Lord Lyon was convinced that it represented the most authentic pattern of what the Morrisons wore in those days and he based the new tartan on the relic.
"The sample in the Scottish Tartans Authority Dalgety Collection was woven by Lochcarron and is labelled (16th March 1972) 'Enclosed pattern of the NEW Clan Morrison tartan woven from the sett provided by the Clan Secretary about the end of 1968 and made for the Morrison Clan. The Green one is now officially known as the Society Morrison.'
"There is no 'green Morrison' as such unless that refers to the Morrison Hunting (#1083, original Scottish Tartans Authority reference).
"#993 (original Scottish Tartans Authority reference) is the original Morrison clan tartan but the reason that #998 (original Scottish Tartans Authority reference) is now regarded as such is said to be as follows: Colonel Morrison, wishing to re-establish his tartan - his old pre-1939 kilt had been destroyed in a London air-raid - made an error by centring one green line instead of two on the red band. When this was later brought to the attention of Sir Thomas of Learney (Lord Lyon) by Stuart Davidson in 1967 he refused to alter what had been registered in Lyon Court Books and remarked that the Morrisons would just have to accept it."
Oftentimes the Lord Lyon relied upon scraps of fabric, in varying stages of disrepair, a picture found hanging on the wall of an old castle, and other historic sources in order to register a tartan as an official clan tartan. And once done, his word is final.
I've been contacted by many customers who are sure the tartan they have always revered as their own is their official family tartan. I certainly don't want to disabuse them of their heritage or family lore. Great great granda no doubt believed it was the family's tartan, and if he was a true, stubborn Scot there will be no telling him different!
