During the 51st Virginia Scottish Games on August 30th and 31st, 2025, Clan Carruthers made a notable debut by hosting its first-ever Carruthers Clan Tent.
Mark and Sang Dunning
Life member Mark Dunning, together with his wife Sang, attended the event dressed in the Clan Carruthers Tartan, proudly upholding the clan’s heritage and traditions. Throughout the two-day event, they manned the tent, decorated with Clan Carruthers gonfalons, flags, and tartan materials, welcoming visitors and sharing information about the clan.
Some of their first visitors were members of the Family of Bruce International, an organization with historical links to Clan Carruthers. The Bruces and the Carruthers share a longstanding relationship, which often draws mutual interest from attendees at Scottish cultural events. Mark believes they were instrumental in directing visitors interested in Clan Carruthers in his direction. To the left is Mark and the Virginia Commissioner for the Family of Bruce International, Gerald Cousins.
Their first Carruthers visitor was Ginny Carruthers, who surprised Mark when she stood by him during the first day’s opening ceremonies and began singing the Canadian National Anthem. As she sang with confidence—a reflection of her Nova Scotian roots—Mark learned that Ginny now calls Alexandria, Virginia home.
The surprises continued when Stuart Carothers from Culpeper, Virginia, as well as Ellen Carruthers and her daughter from Great Falls, Virginia (see above), stopped by the tent on the second day. Mark was genuinely moved by their visit, expressing how meaningful it was to finally meet members of the Carruthers family. Connecting face-to-face with fellow Carruthers brought a sense of belonging and fulfillment that made the entire event especially rewarding for him.
Mark and Sang’s vision and commitment turned the 51st Virginia Scottish Games into an unforgettable occasion for Clan Carruthers, where they organized and hosted the clan’s first clan tent. This gathering brought together members for a weekend filled with camaraderie, heritage, and celebration. Through their thoughtful planning—from decorating the tent with clan tartan and flags to welcoming visitors and sharing stories—they fostered a genuine sense of belonging and pride in the Carruthers identity.
Looking ahead, Mark and Sang hope to make this annual event a tradition, inviting even more Carruthers to join in the festivities next year.
Virginia Scottish Games:
Held annually over Labor Day weekend at Festival Hill in Great Meadow, The Plains, Virginia, the Virginia Scottish Games brings together professional athletes from across North America for the Scots-only Highland Athletic Competition, an exciting feature that highlights traditional feats of strength and skill rooted in Scottish heritage. Alongside these athletic contests, attendees can enjoy a vibrant array of cultural activities, including Piping & Drumming competitions that fill the air with stirring music, displays of Heavy Athletics such as the iconic caber toss, energetic Highland Dance performances that showcase the grace and history of Scottish choreography, and lively Fiddling contests reflecting the region’s musical traditions. These events, along with a variety of other cultural demonstrations, create an immersive celebration of Scotland’s enduring legacy and invite visitors of all backgrounds to experience the spirit and camaraderie of the Scottish Games.
About our members:
Mark, a retired US military vet and his wife Sang make their home in Woodbridge, Virginia. Just five miles from their house lies Dumfries, Virginia—the oldest incorporated town in the state, chartered on May 11, 1749. The town was established on land provided by John Graham, who named it after his birthplace in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. For Mark, living so close to Dumfries feels like a daily connection to his heritage and frequently spark conversations with Sang about his family history and remind them of the transatlantic ties that the Carruthers Clan and other Scottish families share.
Dumfries and its neighboring towns, like Alexandria and Anandale, echo with Scottish influences, not only in place names but also in local traditions. Mark and Sang cherish attending regional events celebrating Scottish culture. These occasions, set against the backdrop of Virginia’s rich colonial history, offer the couple a unique sense of belonging and a tangible way to honor Mark’s roots.
As a teenager growing up in rural Switzerland County, Indiana, Mark’s curiosity about his roots was sparked during a fall afternoon in 1973. He found himself standing with his father in a small church cemetery used by his Dunning family for generations. Mark felt a quiet awe as he walked among the rows of family headstones, sunlight filtering through the canopy to reveal names faded by time. The silence was broken only by the whisper of wind, carrying with it the unspoken stories of generations past. His father could recall only a few names carved into those old stones, leaving Mark with a sense of longing and wonder for the lives that came before him.
Driven by this profound connection to his ancestry, Mark spent countless hours immersed in old records, peering at census microfilms under the dim glow of library lamps, and visiting other graveyards in hopes of piecing together the family’s story. Each faded document and weather-beaten headstone brought both anticipation and frustration. Eventually, Mark traced his lineage back to his third great-grandfather, Michael Dunning, who had migrated from Orange County, New York around 1820. Yet as Mark delved deeper, he realized that records from Orange County before 1820 were elusive—many lost or never created—casting a veil of mystery over Michael Dunning’s origins.
After confronting this roadblock, Mark knew he needed a new approach. In 2003 when genetic genealogy was in its infancy, he reached out to Bennett Greenspan, the founder of FamilyTreeDNA, to help pioneer the Dunning Y-DNA & Surname Study. He recruited several men with the surname Dunning to participate, eager for science to illuminate what paperwork could not. For the uninitiated, a haplogroup is a genetic population group that shares a common ancestor, and Y-DNA testing traces the direct paternal line—making it a powerful tool for genealogists seeking to connect distant relatives and confirm family ties. The study revealed that there were two distinct haplogroups among the Dunning men. Mark’s own Y-DNA results confirmed a connection to known descendants of Theophilus Dunning, the forebear of one branch of the family in America.
With each discovery, Mark felt the rush of excitement and fulfillment, as if the voices of his ancestors echoed a little louder through that summer afternoon in 1973. The journey brought not just answers, but a deeper sense of belonging—a bridge between past and present, linking his name to stories long waiting to be found.
With recent advances in Y-DNA testing techniques and technology, Mark has confirmed he is a direct descendant of a Carruthers male, Theophilus Dunning—a pivotal figure believed to be one of the early forebears of the Dunning family in America and a key link in the Carruthers lineage. This confirmation sheds new light on the Carruthers family history and strengthens connections within the clan’s genealogical records, offering fresh opportunities to understand and preserve the family’s transatlantic story. A recent blog post prepared by Carruthers DNA Project Research Director Steve Colburn sets this forth nicely. The blog can be found here.
The Dunnings, hailing from the United States of America with their lineage dating back to Dumfriesshire, are a confirmed branch of the Holmains line, through both genealogical proofs and solid DNA research. This makes them integral to the Carruthers family both here in Scotland and in the US of A.
As a society we continually try to ensure our publications are evidence based, and double checked by our team if historians, genealogists and geneticists, to ensure the facts are presented accurately for future generations. Folks like Mark and Sang are at the coal face of our international organisation, bringing facts not fiction to our family and long may it continue.
Our sincerest thanks to our list of volunteers and most certainly on this occasion to Mark and Sang resplendent in the official Carruthers clan tartan. Mark assists Dana Caruthers Norton in the US.
Promptus et Fidelis
