In
Scotland, the connection of families with the land owned by
their forebears or their connection with
the great clan houses has provided a rich source of interest
and information about the way in which those forebears lived.
Indeed, many Scots today still look with some pride to their
connection with their clan chief, even if that connection cannot
be genealogically proved by the production of appropriate Birth,
Death and Marriage Certificates.
The huge growth of interest
in clans and clan histories and thereby in the history of Scotland
has been particularly pronounced among the descendants of those
who emigrated to those countries which were originally known
as the ‘New’ World, that is the United States of
America and Canada in North America, and Australia and New Zealand
in the southern hemisphere. Genealogical research is one of the
most rapidly growing leisure pursuits in those countries today.
Making this 19th Edition of Burke’s Landed Gentry available
for searching on the Internet can only help its further and more
effective growth.
Clan societies abound in these countries and it is particularly
significant that so many people whose ancestors left Scotland
many decades, if not centuries, ago still in some profound
way feel that Scotland is their home. Through their association
with clan societies, they are increasingly taking an interest
in the way in which their forebears would have lived, and the
landed families with whom their forebears would have associated.
This association with their clan provides a long-lasting use
of Scottish heraldry outside Scotland as well as with-in. Clansmen
wear, with pride, their clan crest badge. This badge, showing
the chiefly crest within a strap and buckle bearing the chiefly
motto, is worn throughout the world by clanspeople to signify
their allegiance to their clan chief, and thus a direct link
between Scotland and those clanspeople well furth of Scotland
is maintained. They return, wearing their tartan, for periodic
visits and while much of their thoughts are romantic and nostalgic,
their pride is real. They display their affection in a way
that those of us who have remained in Scotland throughout do
not.
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