This week I will be explaining the components of children’s Highland dress. Babies: Highland babies wore a tiny tunic and bonnet, as shown below. In colder weather they would be wrapped in a wool blanket or their mother’s arisaids. When they began to walk, girls would wear a short dress and boys would wear […]

In this week’s blog post I will be explaining the components of men’s Highland Dress. The Plaid: Feileadh-mhor (Fee-lay vor) in Gaelic, the plaid was by far the most common article in men’s highland dress from the late 1500’s onwards, and before that, it was worn over the saffron tunic, a common form of Irish […]

    In this week’s blog post I will be explaining the different components of women’s ancient Highland Dress. The clothing shown here was worn by the general population of Scotland, but not necessarily by women of aristocracy.   The Arisaid: Most Scottish women wore the arisaid ( known as earrasaid or earasaid in Gaelic), a long, […]

Highland dress is a fascinating subject and one of my favourites. In these four blog posts I will be explaining the different kinds of Highland dress worn by women, men and children, but for now, let’s have a quick look at how tartan was made. Clan Tartan: Individual clan tartans were not officially in use […]

A trick that has really helped me with filling in the gaps is this: go by the nephews and nieces names.  You see, Scotland used to have a strict naming tradition, explained in this blog post here As you can see, children were often named after their aunts and uncles, so if you have one ancestor, […]

A question that came up for me recently was why did my 4th great grandfather John Campbell Colquhoun leave his relatives and hometown in Paisley, Renfrewshire to immigrate to Australia in 1857? Coincidentally a few days later I was listening to a podcast episode about the Highland Clearances, and the academic speaking on the podcast […]

  Free trials are a great way to see if a genealogy platform is right for you, since some websites and resources can have very expensive monthly or yearly fees. They can also be wonderful if you are searching for an elusive ancestor that turned up crickets and tumbleweeds on other websites.   But how […]

  Unbeknownst to many, Scotland has many interesting and unique flags, some dating back centuries, and some quite recent. The third in this three-part mini series of blog posts about Scotland, I will explain some of the different flags of Scotland, their meanings and a brief history. Enjoy!     1. The Saltire: Possibly the most iconic […]

 As part of a mini blog series, I am explaining some of the basic facts about Scotland in three blog posts; a Profile of Scotland, The Anthems of Scotland and the Flags of Scotland. Enjoy! There are many popular songs in Scotland, some dating back to the 1300’s or earlier! In this blog post I will […]

  It can be very hard to piece together from various websites and sources what are the actual basic facts about Scotland, so in these three blog posts I will be explaining the Songs of Scotland and the Flags of Scotland, along with this blog post: A Profile of Scotland;   Scotland:       […]