MGM·Lion - I'm in my mid 50's,
son of a factory shop floor trades unionist and an old folks care home arse wiper;
average 1960s civilised working class council estate upbringing:
until passing the 11 plus complicated my life for ever after afterwards...

I'm no scholar - one of my more neurotic degree lecturers took a dislike to me
and condemned me as "being anti-intellectual !!!"..

So in my rather simplistic outlook:

'Trad Folk' is the good old pissed up singalong playalong stuff which came into being
long before any of us were ever born

'Contemporary Folk' is anything created since then which a general popular consensus
could consider 'folky enough for whatever reasons'
as long as it aint obviously so far removed it's something else....

with allowances made for exceptions to the rules
as long as the disputing don't become too violent.........