-As a bearer of this name and a member of this clan, I ask you all a favor.- I'm the only of my immediate family with any interest what-so-ever in family history, or preserving the culture and traditions of my ancestors. As such, and with that attitude of reverence to my ancestors in mind, I had decided to do a little genealogical research. Stating the obvious, I ended up here and with a little information about my name and those who bore it before me. I took interest in this ideal of preservation of culture and reverence to my family, my clan, because I thought that it's the way I ought to be, and it'd give me something to be proud of. Now, excuse my ignorance, but thus far I've found little of which to be proud . I had already almost accepted the fact that I wasn't descent from highlanders of old, and in finding my descent from the lowlands I wasn't too disappointed. I told myself, "There are plenty of things to be proud of." Thus far, I've found only a border "clan" (using that term loosely until I've been convinced that I should use it with assurance) that has repeatedly swapped alliegances from native Scotland to oppressing England and in doing so forsaken all my hopes of a (romanticised) "stand-for-one-to-the-end" vision for my ancestors. In the alliegance to Robert the Bruce I thought, "Oh, this is great! Some real loyalty to their country, and to the ideal of freedom (from opression by England)." Then came the alliegance swapping again, and the (nearly) constant feuding with Johnstones' clan. Furthermore, nobility doesn't rank too high on my scale of reasons to be proud, because there are plenty of crooked, opressive nobles. I was looking for, I guess, in my own mind, a romanticised ancestor of heroic principles and beliefs, willing to stand for ideals. I haven't seen any principles, any real moral character to this, my "clan" and all the alliegance swapping. I said these things to myself, stood back and realized that I've got to have missed something somewhere, gone wrong somehow and I've misinterpreted. So won't someone please give me something to be proud of? Show me why I should want to be a part of this clan. Can you do this for me? Tell me I've got the wrong idea and give me the right one.