Reference to Scots In Old Book, and My Family Brainwashing

[macwilkin]

People were transplanted to Ulster from both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border so an English ethnicity from that period is of course perfectly possible. The effort in large part seems to have been to reduce the ingrained fighting and general scrappiness of the people in the Border Marches following the union of the two kingdoms, so I would suggest that groups on both sides of the original border were culturally all but identical- certainly they seem to have switched sides just as readily as any group of people, historical or present-day, in the same situation. If you have a name that could be either English or Scottish or Scottish Lowlander, one way to decide which side your family would be on is to study where they landed in Ulster- for obvious reasons they usually weren't mixed in their new settlements.

You will also find the occasional land grant to a veteran of Cromwell's New Model Army, as well as Protestant refugees & settlers from Germany & France, the most famous example being the noted frontiersman David Crockett, whose ancestor came from La Rochelle.

Spot on post, though, especially regarding the borders. I highly recommend the late George Macdonald Fraser's The Steel Bonnets for a riping read about Scotland's "Wild West".

T.

[MacBean]

I have Moores in my family born in Edinburgh.

As for Wilde, imagining him reciting poetry in the mines at Leadville ... there's a flamboyant guy with guts and a sense of humor!

[Riverkilt]

Trust the family lore.

[Bugbear]

Trust the family lore.

It's the parts that aren't discussed that are interesting...

[piperdbh]

So what color are those velvet knee breeches?

[Bugbear]

So what color are those velvet knee breeches?

Hmmm, it doesn't say. I don't want to open up that "traditional color of Irish knee breeches" can of worms either. Oops, I guess I just did.

The history of the family, on the other side, goes back to England and other European areas, and one branch hits a void of utter silence. It isn't discussed in the family, and the information appears to be lost...

I did get my late grandmother on that side to discuss her childhood and branch of the family, ranchers/farmers, so that is the heritage I have from that side. I'm wearing overalls mostly now-a-days.

[macwilkin]

Trust the family lore.

Trust, but verify, to harken back to the Cold War days. As a genealogical librarian, I saw family lore turned on it's ear on a regular basis, not to mention all of the Union ancestors who were believed to be Rebs. ;-)

T.

[Bugbear]

Ya, there's some issues related to the English, but it's complicated, and I don't want to go into it...

Wilde is an interesting character...

That pretty much covers it, I think.

[tulloch]

I would say pay very close attention to the family lore. It is often incorrect but it is often correct with details that can be quite accurate after many generations.

[Bugbear]

Speaking of my heritage from my grandmother...

Kit Carson was of Scots-Irish ancestry according to Hampton Sides's, Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West; Doubleday, 2006.

He was a big villain/hero in my home state, depending on who you talk to, of course.

So there's another fingerprint of the Scots Diaspora on my life here in the Desert Southwest.

Just gathering evidence...