“What is the motto that appears on the Fraser clan crest?” To most people this would appear to be an almost impossibly obscure question and one that surely threatened to interrupt my interview with the Scottish Tartan Museum’s curator, Matthew Newsome, for several minutes at least.

However, within 30 seconds Newsome had located this piece of Scottish trivia and provided the inquisitive caller with the answer they sought (“All my hope is in God,” in case you were wondering).

It was an impressive display of Newsome’s mastery of Scottish genealogy and is indicative of the downtown-Franklin museum staff’s comprehensive knowledge of all things Scottish.

As its name suggests, the museum’s focus is on the Scottish tartan and Highland dress. The word tartan refers to any material with a pattern of vertical and horizontal interlocking stripes, and this type of material has been produced throughout history in just about every fabric-producing society from Asia to South America. While it may seem a very narrow subject to dedicate an entire museum to (like having a German lederhosen museum or perhaps a French beret museum), Scottish kilts and the tartan they are made with are such an integral and important aspect of Scottish heritage and Highland culture that the focus is indeed justified and necessary.

“It’s really something people are interested in because when someone has Scottish heritage, the kilt and the family tartan are a good visual representation of that heritage. It’s an icon of Scotland everyone recognizes,” said Newsome.

The museum was created in 1988 at the behest of the Scottish Tartan Society, an organization of scholars, collectors and tartan producers that first organized in 1963. The group wanted to create and maintain an official database of tartans and the specific clans and organizations they represent, as well as provide information to those researching their Scottish heritage. The Society opened a museum in Scotland and after finding that most of their inquiries were coming from the United States, decided to open a museum in North America. Western North Carolina, with its large concentration of Scottish descendants, seemed the perfect place.

“North Carolina is the most Scottish state in the union as far as heritage. If you are from North Carolina, it is pretty much a mathematical certainty you have some degree of Scottish ancestry,” said museum trustee Walter J. Taylor.

Western North Carolina has indeed worked well as a base of operations and the museum has since moved from its original location in Highlands to a larger, 4,800-square-foot facility on Main Street in Franklin that attracts up to 15,000 visitors a year, according to Newsome. In keeping with the museum’s focus, exhibits include several kilts more than 150 years old, a working loom that a volunteer regularly uses to produce tartan scarves, and several walls covered with hundreds of swatches of tartan, each swatch labeled with the specific clan it is now associated with.

However, while the focus is on the tartans, the museum also contains a wealth of information on Scottish history and culture as a whole with a display of Scottish weaponry and an exhibit on the Scots’ interaction with the Cherokee.

While the presentation of the exhibits is modest by Smithsonian standards, they are authentic and informative. Once again, though, it is the depth of knowledge possessed by the museum’s staff and the wide array of unique educational and research services they provide that make the museum stand out.

“We are the only museum outside of Scotland whose focus is the kilt. We get a lot of people all over the country and internationally calling or emailing us with questions we can help them research. People can say, ‘My name is such and such. Am I Scottish? What clan am I from? What’s my family tartan?’ and we can provide them with answers. We serve as a center for that kind of information,” said Newsome.

The Scottish Tartan Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and its Web site can be found at www.scottishtartans.org.