A Tale of two Scottish Clans

My mother was Scottish and could trace her ancestry back to the Campbells of Breadalbane. If I recall correctly it was her grandmother’s grandmother who was the daughter of the Earl of Campbell (so 5 or 6 generations back). I, of course, grew up listening to the stories of the Campbells and seeing the odd snippets of memorabilia from those roots that were owned by various members of the family.
Sadly, my mother and all of her siblings have passed away and all that is left are those memories I have of those stories.

But those memories are firmly rooted in my being and Scotland has, and always will be, very much a part of me. Scotland is in my soul and I am profoundly proud of those roots.

When I married Linda Norvelle twelve years ago it became a goal to, one day, take her to to Scotland and introduce her to that part of me. Note also, that my parents’ ashes are scattered in the Scottish Highlands and they had both passed away before I ever met Linda. So a secondary goal was to visit their final resting place and “officially” introduce Linda to them.

So our 2023 trip to Europe was an opportunity to take care of both goals.
You can read about that in this blog post.

When posting about our trip to Facebook, one of Linda’s cousins (also named Linda), commented something like “how cool, did you know some of our ancestors were Scottish”.
This was a total surprise to (my) Linda, whose maiden name is “Norvelle”, a French-sounding name and never knew anything about this Scottish connection. So Linda asked her cousin if she knew anything more about that connection and if she knew the name of the clan.
Well it turned out that was the Macleod clan from the Isle of Skye. We had just toured the Isle of Skye and, in researching where to go and what to see, had learned that the Dunvegan Castle in Skye is the original stronghold of the Macloeds and that the castle is the longest, continuously inhabited castle in all of Scotland. Mind blown!

So, Linda is right there with me and can legitimately lay claim to some Scottish ancestry. While the exact connection is a bit grey (the MacLoed clan has several “branches”), those are details that did not squash our enthusiasm.

We then did some research to find out what Tartan belongs to the Macleod clan.. and thing got a little greyer. Sometimes a branch in a clan can have multiple Tartans associated (a “dress Tartan”, an “hunting Tartan”, etc) and the Macleod clan is one of them.
This is what they look like.