Christopher Columbus was Scottish

**Nick the DSM** · 9th March 09, 04:56 PM

any tangible proof???

**Bryan** · 9th March 09, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by Nick the DSM

any tangible proof???

Proof of what? The Columbus being Scottish story or L'Anse aux Meadows?

**O'Callaghan** · 9th March 09, 07:51 PM

After reading the article I'd still say Christopher Columbus, aka Pedro Scotto, was Italian, just of Scottish descent. His alleged true family surname, Scotto, looks to me as if it means something like 'the Scot' in Italian (guesstimating because I never learnt Italian). It certainly doesn't look like a Scottish name. In many countries (but not Gaelic ones so much), one of the early forms of surnames indicated the town where you were born, or if you were a foreigner, the country. If his parents owned a shop in Genoa, they may have been born in Scotland, or their forebears may have been, but he was probably born in Italy.

Wonder if he had a claim to belonging to a clan? Probably not. As the son of shopkeepers more likely he was of lowland descent, and they would have regarded highlanders and clans as barbaric at that time, LOL!

**Nick** · 11th March 09, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by O'Callaghan

After reading the article I'd still say Christopher Columbus, aka Pedro Scotto, was Italian, just of Scottish descent. His alleged true family surname, Scotto, looks to me as if it means something like 'the Scot' in Italian (guesstimating because I never learnt Italian). It certainly doesn't look like a Scottish name. In many countries (but not Gaelic ones so much), one of the early forms of surnames indicated the town where you were born, or if you were a foreigner, the country. If his parents owned a shop in Genoa, they may have been born in Scotland, or their forebears may have been, but he was probably born in Italy.

Wonder if he had a claim to belonging to a clan? Probably not. As the son of shopkeepers more likely he was of lowland descent, and they would have regarded highlanders and clans as barbaric at that time, LOL!

Scozia is Italian for Scotland, so I think a locative name would be something along the lines of Pedro di Scozia. Scot or scottish is scozzese. Scotto means 'overcooked' in modern Italian. Don't know if that helps.

**O'Callaghan** · 9th March 09, 07:54 PM

I'd also like to say that when archaeologists discovered L'Anse aux Meadows the locals had known all about it for some time, but no-one ever asked them, so I'm told.

**Bryan** · 9th March 09, 08:18 PM

Originally Posted by O'Callaghan

I'd also like to say that when archaeologists discovered L'Anse aux Meadows the locals had known all about it for some time, but no-one ever asked them, so I'm told.

Actually, that's not entirely true. The locals did know about the site, but they thought it was an Indian site according to Helge Ingstad.

**Zardoz** · 9th March 09, 09:56 PM

I don't know that much about that Italian fellow, but a lot of reseach indicates the Iceland, Greenland and maybe Newfoundland were visited by Irish as early as 800-900AD.

**Phil** · 10th March 09, 01:21 AM

These damn Scots get everywhere.

**Nick the DSM** · 10th March 09, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Bryan

Proof of what? The Columbus being Scottish story or L'Anse aux Meadows?

Columbus being Scottish, I don't see it. Just because his last name is Scotto doesn't mean he's Scottish. For all we know the name could be derived from Scoti, which meant pirate(right?). I've looked on wikipedia and a bunch of Italian and Italian- Americans had the last name Scotto.

But that's just me, skeptical as usual.