Conclusion

As I’ve said earlier, I am no expert but with my limited understanding I’d like to put forward a possible explanation for the origins of the Fairweathers. William Don states: “The Fairweathers as a race are undoubtedly Norse; or at least Teutonic; I have never known any of them to show a Celtic strain.”

Given my own DNA results and research, I’d rephrase the above: “the Fairweathers are probably Teutonic and may be related to the Vikings. They are not Celtic.” There may have been families or groups of families who worked as shepherds and farmers in or near areas inhabited by other races and participated in the migrations of Germanic peoples across Europe. They may even have had Viking blood, as there is at least one shared DNA marker. 

However, there is a flaw in the argument. Any explanation that uses the modern name “fairweather” as the starting point is likely to arrive at the wrong conclusion. The word has its roots in older spellings such as “fairvedder”, “fawvedder”, Farewethir, Farewedder, Fairwodder. So simplistically explaining it as someone with a “sunny disposition” or from the Bible “fair weather cometh out of the north”, or I have done, using the modern word to describe an activity, in fact, all miss the point. What did the root word mean? What are its origins? 

The ChatGPT conversation recorded on the “Flemish Connection?” page provides a strong link to the Flemish.

Setting aside the word “faer”, perhaps the Norse connection is a red herring. The Flemish connection fits with two pieces of evidence: my DNA clearly links me to the Low Countries, and in 1792, my ancestor John Fairweather, at the time of his marriage, was a weaver of sailcloth with close connections to Dundee merchants and their clippers, which regularly sailed to the continent. Sunny disposition or not, it explains why we do not have a tartan and credibly explains who we are and where we came from. To me, it’s a satisfactory explanation.