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SALT LAKE CITY — Twins Jonathan and Drew Scott are well-known for transforming dilapidated houses into picturesque dream homes on their hit TV show “Property Brothers,” but they’ve also found a passion for family history.
The brothers made an appearance Thursday morning at Roots Tech, a yearly family history and technology conference held in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, and reminisced on their own Scottish heritage.
The annual Roots Tech conference seeks to inspire families to become more involved in their genealogy work and introduces new technology that aids in the search. While there, the Property Brothers regaled the audience with stories of their own ancestry and the way they use family history as a part of home design.
Jonathan Scott, as Drew Scott attested, likes to look through people’s possessions while remodeling a home in order to know where to start designing, and family pictures are always a good place to begin.
“I want to know who lives here,” Jonathan Scott said. “Family pictures are conversation starters.”
The brothers even said they once found missing wedding pictures and rings while combing through a certain family’s possessions. If home is where the heart is, then the brothers look for the heart of a family before they commence redesign.
The brothers, who started a decorative hanger's business that earned them thousands of dollars at age 7, have many passions. However, they’ve always found a certain love of family history ever since their dad explained to them their Scottish heritage.
“Our dad started to tell us about castles, and armor and swords. We’re probably the nerdiest guys you will ever meet because we have our own medieval weapons collection and a suit of armor that I tailor-made to fit me,” Jonathan Scott said.
“I’ll come home and I’ll hear this clinking metal sound, and Jonathan’s just walking around in his suit of armor by himself,” Drew Scott said.
The brothers also learned to play the bagpipes and would regularly compete in competitions when they were younger.
“My dad told me that girls like musicians, so I thought, 'Then I’m learning the bagpipes,' ” Jonathan Scott said. “It did not get me a single date.”
Their father, who was Scottish, immigrated to Canada where he met the brothers’ mother and fell quickly in love. The twins grew up, however, hearing stories of their Scottish ancestors, one of which was Robert the Bruce, a Scottish warrior that partly inspired the film, Braveheart.
“We loved learning about our history because we would always try to relive it,” Drew Scott said. “We would go into the woods and find big logs and have epic sword fight battles.”
The brothers invited everyone at the conference to continue learning about their own past and utilizing the technology that would help their family history become a true part of who they are.
Property Brothers talk about their Christmas traditions #RootsTech2017pic.twitter.com/ophDVQnk3g — Liesl Nielsen (@liesl_nielsen) February 9, 2017
