T is for Tartan

You remember that little challenge I started in April... I still have a few letters left and after the below message from cousin Helen:

hey steff, would you know the Cameron Clan Tartan by any chance? ive googled and you get a few..thanks so much! Hel

it seems a good time to continue on with the planned topic....

Today T is for Tartan. As in the patterned cloth that most associate with Scotland. As in the ties, kilts, tea towels and scarves that anyone with Scottish surname has received as a souvenir from a friend visiting Scotland!

There are 4 Cameron tartans (described best on the Clan Cameron website...)

From left to right: We commoners can wear this 'basic' Cameron tartan but not the second, the Cameron of Lochiel tartan, which should only be worn by members of the Chief's family. The third, Cameron of Erracht is more a regimental / military tartan and the last is the Hunting Cameron tartan because the basic Cameron tartan, with its fetching green squares on a red sett with its golden line is considered a little bright!

In anticipation of this post I did a bit of reading and found that tartan doesn't seem to have originated in Scotland. According to Wikipedia (who summarises everything so neatly I do tend to hit there first when looking for information on a new topic...) tartan as we know it wasn't a Scottish thing until sometime in the 16th century. Before this it was a more central European thing and tartan material has also been found on a 3000 year old mummy in western China. Who knew...

Once tartan was introduced in Scotland though it became quite the fashion for Highlanders. Not to differentiate between the different clans as Hollywood suggests in Braveheart but rather different types of tartan developed to different regional tastes and of course, resources. And because the tartan was associated with the Highlanders (who in turn were the majority of Jacobites who gave the English crown a bit of a scare in the 18th century) the wearing of tartan was outlawed in 1746 except by army regiments. When the Act was repealed in 1782 tartan wasn't just a Highland fashion anymore but representative of Scotland generally. Eventually various tartans became associated with each clan and were we to meet on the field in battle today it would probably be a little easier to tell friend from foe.

Emma Watson doesn't look too common in our tartan! :op

L is for Language

My mother tongue is English (Australian English to be precise). Je parle un peu francais[1]. Och jag kan  svenska [2]. I have studied Latin and Japanese but remember very little and like many travellers, I can order a beer in Russian, Spanish and German! Notwithstanding, I have had a learn a number of new terms and phrases to assist my genealogical journey that I didn't know before.

And so, L is for Language.

When I do come across an unfamiliar word or phrase I happily look it up. I've never shied from dictionaries and Google is a my best friend, providing answers to questions just as quickly as I can think of them. Knowledge is power and some words and phrases are tiny windows into the past.

I've already noted some words, including "exlineal" (that I'm determined to get back into common usage!) and most recently "kirk". In that same post was "antenuptial" which is probably self-evident but which I looked up just to be certain!

Some other phrases and terms that had cropped up in my journey include (in no particular order and thanks largely to Wikipedia):

banns: the public announcement in a Christian parish church of an impending marriage between two specified persons. 
a burgh of barony: a type of Scottish town. They were distinct from royal burghs as the title was granted to a tenant-in-chief, a landowner who held his estates directly from the crown. They were created between 1450 and 1846, and conferred upon the landowner varying trading rights (for example the right to hold weekly markets or to trade overseas). 
apoplexy: used to describe "bleeding" in a stroke or also to describe any sudden death that began with a sudden loss of consciousness, especially one in which the victim died within a matter of seconds after losing consciousness
shipwright: an old-fashioned term for a ship builder or ship carpenter which may involve anything from physically constructing or repairing a ship to being involved in its design.
brig: a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts
Laird: a member of the gentry; historically Lairds rank below a Baron and above an Esquire and is a heritable title in Scotland. The title is granted to the owner of a substantial and distinctive landed estate in Scotland, not part of a village or town and that lies outwith a burgh. 



[1] I speak a little French.
[2] And I can speak Swedish.

Where do I come from?

This question generally elicits an embarrassed cough and an “Ask your mother” but Cam’s Fam, you can now answer with confidence that you come from...

On the left bank of the River Spey as it flows north towards the Moray Firth, Garmouth, aka the Barony of Germach or the even less pronounceable Geàrr Magh in Gaelic [1] as it has previously been known,  is a small town towards the north east of Scotland. Eleven years ago the population of Garmouth was 494 [2] which is surprisingly less than the 675 inhabitants in 1835 [3]. So, when I say small town, I mean it! 

To its credit though, by 1863 the town had a gasworks, proving light to both it and Kingston-on-Spey a few miles upriver, a public school, a Gothic Free Church with an octagonal tower [4], “three inns, a post office, savings bank and three agents for insurances” [5] and a sawmill. There isn’t a lot there now from what I saw - just the Church, the Garmouth Hotel where Mum and I enjoyed lunch and narrow-winding streets, dotted with small cottages, many of whose foundations were laid before there were white men in Australia.

The major social event of the year is the Maggie Fair, held annually in June and has been every year since the town was deemed a burgh of Barony in 1587 by Robert Innes, the 19th Laird of the Innes Clan (think Clan Chief), by virtue of a Crown Charter and granting it the right to host a fair.

Another event of import that seems to pop up when searching Garmouth’s history is that in June 1650, after the execution of his father and return from exile in Europe, Charles II first set foot on the land he now ruled in Garmouth and it is where he signed 1638 Scottish National Covenant and the 1643 Solemn League and Covenant shortly after coming ashore.

The final event that gets some mention is the flood of 1829. It’s strange though, upon visiting Garmouth, the Spey River does not seem so close now that you would expect that Garmouth was a. flooded to a height of 10 feet 2 inches above ordinary level so that “there was scarely a house in the lower quarter of the village which was no injured or a garden wall which was not swept away” [6] and b. part of a thriving ship building industry that grew from the late eighteenth century to its height in the mid 1850s . Between 1785 and 1920 over 500 ships were built and launched in the Spey, varying from 99 ton schooners and East Indiamen of over 1000 tons burthen [7].

The industry dwindled in the early years of the 20th century but not without employing a number of rels, including our Robert, his brother and his father. (More on this another time). Hand in hand with the shipbuilding was a large timber industry, which floated logs from the forests of Glenmore, Abernethy, Rothiemurchus, and Glenfishie to the port of Kingston, all part of the Scottish shire or county of Moray, in which Garmouth is located.

Moray is pronounced Murray in that gorgeous Scottish burr. The Innes Family claim Moray as their traditional lands, as does Clan Gordon, with Gordon Castle built in the eastern corner of the shire, which stretches from the River Spey to the Lossie River, along the North Sea coast. 

One fan of the region in 1775 wrote of Moray that “no Country in Europe can boast of a more pure, temperate, and wholesome air. No part of it is either too hot and sultry in Summer, nor too sharp and cold in Winter; and it is generally (and I think justly) observed, that in the plains of Moray they have 40 days of fair weather in the year, more than in any other country in Scotland.” [8]

It wasn’t one of those 40 days when Mum and I visited the area. So while the weather wasn’t that inviting, the people were hospitable and the area beautiful and I can only imagine how difficult a decision Robert had to make, leaving everything and everyone familiar and a town our family had called home for at least 100 years (from what I have found). But, thank goodness he did!

[1] which means narrow plain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmouth,_Moray   

[2] http://www.moray.gov.uk/downloads/file57809.pdf accessed 15 Jan 2012

[3] Skelton, J 1995, Speybuilt: The story of a forgotten industry, Garmouth p.11

[4] http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=21422 

[5] Skelton, J 1995, Speybuilt: The story of a forgotten industry, Garmouth p.6

[6] Skelton, J 1995, Speybuilt: The story of a forgotten industry, Garmouth p. 10

[7] Skelton, J 1995, Speybuilt: The story of a forgotten industry, Garmouth p. 11 (and no I don’t know what 100 tons burthen is either!)

[8] 1882, The History of the Province of Moray.