Welcome to Scotweb

Find your Family, Clan & Tartan Heritage

Being Scottish is about far more than clan history. Scotland welcomes all who belong here, whether by birth, descent, immigration... or just a desire to feel part of our wonderful heritage. Wherever we live in the world, Scots history and character is at the heart of our identity.

We love to display our roots. Especially on special occasions or when living far from our homeland, Scots enjoy a unique range of historical traditions and symbols by which we can show our heritage, as members of our own families and clans, and as part of a global Scottish culture.

Here at Scotweb we are dedicated to helping you discover and display your own clan & family heritage with pride. Find help and advice in our Information Centre. And if that's not enough, our team is delighted to help with any query, complex or simple. Just contact us.

Understanding Scottish Clans, Tartans, Genealogy, & Icons

Scottish identity is strongly based on family and locality. To discover and display your own roots, start with these main traditions:

1. Scottish clans - extended families from their historic areas;
2. tartans or plaids, by which families wear their allegiance;
3. archives and records of family genealogy or history;
4. traditional symbols of national or regional Scottish identity.

Our Information Centre will help you understand these. And the more you explore our site, the more you'll discover. But below is a quick primer on each of these key traditions to help you on your way.

Scottish Clan Traditions

In most of Scotland, kinship was traditionally based around clans. The clan system is based on local areas, with one family providing the Clan Chief, and giving the clan its name. But you do not need that surname to belong to the clan. Most clans have a number of recognised clan Septs, which are families traditionally enjoying the clan's protection. And other families can be affiliated to the clan by marriage, local residence, etc. Search our site for your surname, to find clan affiliations for many clan septs and variant clan surname spellings (that are equally valid). We cannot cover every possible clan name. So if you're not sure, please do contact us.

Each clan has its own traditional clan symbols. These will include clan tartans, a clan motto, and the clan's heraldic icons... especially a Clan Crest. You do not need to join a clan society to wear the clan crest. Scotweb offers a large range of high quality authentic clan goods bearing the clan crest for most clans, including clan wall plaques and embroidered clan crests or clan heraldry, decorated clan tablewares, and kilt accessories or clan-crest themed kilt outfits. Just search our site for your surname or clan name, or explore our full range of clan products.

Tartan or Plaid

'Plaid' and 'tartan' really mean the same thing, depending on where you come from. A tartan is simply a unique criss-cross pattern (a 'sett') in a series of coloured threads. This simple principle gives rise to an almost infinite variety of patterns. Each design is identified with a clan, a family, an area, an organisation, etc. and any family can have more than one. Please see our Information Centre for more details. Scotweb offers the world's largest range of tartans and tartan goods. And our founder, Nick Fiddes, is a governor of the Scottish Tartans Authority and a member of the Scottish Government's Tartan Register steering group. Our staff are fully trained to handle all your queries, simple or complex, so please contact us.

Tartan was traditionally always woven fabrics, for garments such as kilts and ladies skirts, tartan ties, shawls or serapes or other wraps, or for household goods and a wide variety of other uses. Nowadays its use goes much further and you can find everything from tartan tablewares to tartan candles, and even quaichs engraved with a tartan pattern. Our site lets you find tartan products in two main ways. You can (1) search our tartan finder for your name (or by colour, or various other ways) and then explore products available in that surname, or that tartan sett, or that fabric, etc. Or you can (2) search or browse to a product available in a range of tartans, and then find your name or favourite pattern among the tartans available for that product.

Family Genealogy

Genealogy research is quite different to clan and tartan traditions. Genealogical records deal in actual family descent, as recorded by official archives and church records etc. To conduct a search into your family history you need to have reliable details of a family member who lived in Scotland since proper record keeping began. But with this information you can often uncover a wealth of detail about your own family history, providing further insights into your clan and tartan heritage.

To help you explore your own family genealogy, we provide full details on how to go about your research, whether you prefer to do this independently or with the help of experts such as our friends at ScottishRoots.com. This is a free service from Scotweb.

Thistles, Celtic Knotwork, Bagpipes, Saltires, Quaichs, and more...

For such a tiny wee nation (about 5m within Scotland, perhaps 100m abroad!) Scotland is blessed with a remarkable range of widely recognised symbols by which we can show off our unique heritage. Scotweb is dedicated to sourcing and supplying the finest examples of authentic goods and services displaying these traditions.

The Scottish thistle (Scotweb's emblem!) is an ancient tradition, used to adorn countless products. Whether it's kilt accessories emblazoned with a thistle emblem (or even the kilt itself, which we can supply with a woven thistle fabric!), or perhaps an item of thistle jewellery from our massive range, or a discreetly embroidered neck tie... we've got the lot!

The origins of Celtic knotwork, or Celtic Crosses or other Celtic iconography are lost in the mists of time. But the tradition lives on as vibrantly as in any time in history. Our products include everything from a huge range of Jewellery, to wooden carvings and casts; then there are our best-selling Celtic Knot quaichs, and gorgeous throws in Celtic patterns, to...

... we could go on and on. But why not explore for yourself? If in doubt, search our site using the box at the top of each page. And, once again, if you still can't find it, just please contact us.