The below was too nicely phrased to ignore -
Family history remains fantastically popular. A headcount would surely confirm that there are more genealogists than academic scholars afoot in Scotland's repositories and research libraries; and an impressive proportion of the works optimistically classified as 'Scottish history' by the bookshops turns out to be attempts to entice the budding family historian. This should not be entirely surprising, given the commercial capital now invested in Scottish kinship, fictitious and real: both tartan textile manufacturers and heritage tourism, to name just two profitable industries, derive obvious advantages from peddling the notion of meaningful blood ties between the now-scattered members of ancient Scottish dynasties. But if such activities have formed an important part of the relentless romanticisation of the Scottish past, usually attributed by cynical cultural historians to the effects of nineteenth century Balmorality and the novels of Sir Walter Scott, then it is crucial to note that the desire to trumpet one's own breeding was neither a unique product of that age nor at any time a\ peculiarly Scottish affectation... (footnotes left out) Being the opening paragraph on page 147 of 'What's in a name?: Pedigree and Propaganda in Seventeenth-Century Scotland' an essay by David Allen - being Chapter 7 of Edward J Cowan (ed.) and Richard J Finlay (ed.) Scottish History - The Power of the Past, Edinburgh University Press, 2002. David Allan was then a Lecturer in Scottish History at the Department of Scottish History at the University of St. Andrews.
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