According to Wikipedia page linked to earlier, Scotch-Irish was the 3rd largest ancestry group in 1790 U.S.A., ahead of Scots and Irish and behind only English and African.
From pursuing my own family history, I see a huge influx of Scotch-Irish during the early and mid 1700’s; these Presbyterians made up a large part of the early expeditions across the Blue Ridge Mountains, and later down the Ohio River. Theodore Roosevelt speaks much of these people, writing:
(My father had so much Scots blood, my Mother blamed it for his sarcastic humor. Is this association generally recognized?)
That article states that it is the largest self-reported ancestral group.
Anyone who has an ancestry that is different to whatever is perceived to be the ‘norm’ is more likely to take some interest in that ancestry and pass knowledge of it (even if only in their surnames) from generation to generation.
Until I went on a genealogical binge a few years ago I couldn’t have told you my ancestry. I assumed my surname is Irish or English (it can be either) but I didn’t realize how much Swiss and German ancestry I have, one reason being that many of the immigrants or their children changed their surnames to more Anglo sounding names (e.g. Geiß became Guice, Kolb became Culp, von Tschudin became Judy) and some of what I assumed were French surnames actually belonged to German speaking Swiss.
The biggest surprises were the black African ancestors I found. There are probably a LOT more white southerners with black ancestry than realize it) and I suspect many are like my family- “Cherokee” blood. That said, most of my ancestors were British- Scots-Irish and English (north English seeming almost as distinct from the rest of England as Scotland is). It wasn’t surprising to learn I’m a mut, which most Americans are since nationality of ancestors hasn’t been a big deal in many generations.
We all have 2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 gg parents , 16 ggg parents, 32 ggggparents, 64 gggg parents, 128, 256 ancesters in the 7th generation (20 years per generation) living at the moment of emacipation and therefore 500ancestors of any American at that moment in time.
The numbers lend credence to you assertion of black ancestry.
What I am curious about is the documentation you must have found that leads you to believe you have black ancestry. It is my understanding that inter racial marriage was illegal for most of the period following emancipation. Not the sort of thing you volunteer to document. It took DNA evidence to prove Sally Hemmings was related to Jefferson.
I, too, wonder about what evidence Sampiro found. I’d expect that somewhere in the chain of ancestry would be someone who’d really want to hide that fact, and I’d expect them to have succeeded.
Well, technically, though cousin marriages (which pretty much everybody has in their ancestry at some point) can reduce the number of individuals who fill those positions. Still it’s a lot; I’ve documented over 300 direct ancestors in North America, which sounds like a lot but most have lived in or since the 18th century. It’s amazing how many people made you.
No DNA evidence, but my maternal grandfather’s maternal grandfather descended from a white indentured servant (Betty Rawlinson) who in Maryland in 1705 gave birth to a mulatto daughter. She did not identify the father when questioned and evidently went to jail for it- she went to jail for something around this time anyway.
I found a record for Betty Rawlinson, mother, and Betty Rawlinson, daughter (parents who name their children after themselves can be the bane of future genealogists) referred to as “spinsters” but in the literal sense (made their living by spinning) and Betty Jr. was again referred to as a mulatto.
Betty Jr. had children but I can find no record of a husband. By the Revolutionary War her descendants were in South Carolina where they actually had to register as mulattoes. One of the grandsons, William, moved to Alabama with his own wife and children and thereafter was white.
So I have the paper trail, but since it’s neither a mitochondrial or Y line I can’t verify it with genetic genealogy yet. This is my great-great-grandfather in that line who would have been a great-great-grandson of the indentured servant and whoever fathered her child; no idea if anything indicates biracial features, but if you imagine him a little darker and with curlier hair you can see how his grandfather might have passed for white.
Incidentally this is something I learned from research through family histories and court records and the like; it did NOT get passed down orally and in fact that branch of the family is particularly redneckish. (How redneck you ask? They have their own tabernacle.) By their own account they descend from Cherokee- of this I found NO evidence.
I give genealogy workshops about three times a year as a librarian, usually for the beginners. I got a confused look once from a student who misread the advertisement as a gynecology workshop and was wondering about my qualifications. When I understood the mix-up I shouldn’t have but- never one to resist a straightline- I quipped “well, they are similar; in either one you take a look up great-grandma and there’s no telling what you’re gonna find”. Luckily she didn’t get it, but I did speak from experience on that part.
That’s very true but I was not talking about Americans’ ancestry if they took a DNA test. My point is that the Scottish/Scotch-Irish archetype has become the dominant and most popular American archetype (especially among conservatives) even among people who don’t have that background themselves.
Even English is not as dominant. Even though everyone knows that the English founded the US, people are not all that likely to identify with the English now and are just as likely to see them as elitist prep-schooled oppressors of the Scots, Welsh, etc. (something I hear ad nauseam)
I had read that the border Scots were notorious for raiding English settlements (over the border of course) and many were exiled overseas as punishment.
I find it amusing that the OP is from Canada. Now that’s a Schottisher country!
There are several strands of mainstream Yank:
1a) English. The top dogs in the early settlers were substantially from England. Early Mormons went to England to preach & brought converts back to Utah. In New York, this may be mixed with Nederlands Dutch.
1b) Scots. A whole of these as you might expect. Many of them actually were “Irish”–being descended from English/Scottish speakers that settled in Ireland. Interestingly, in parts of the South, both the blacks & the whites are of Scots heritage, but the presence of any admixture with “dark-skinned races” puts one on the hated “black” side. Even if you look more Glaswegian than Ghanaian.
Irish Catholic. Some of them like to think that they’re mainstream Americans now. There’s occasional disagreement on this from Protestant English & Scots.
German (often assimilated & masked). The “Pennsylvania Dutch.” The “Black Dutch.” And so on. Actually Deutscher. That’s pretty vague, as according to a friend’s mother, there are at least four different categories of German-Americans (I don’t know what they are though). West of the Appalachians, you find a lot of these, & some accents are a wee bit like Scots run through a Plattdeutsch accent. Some of this is downplayed after the English ruling class dragged us into the Great War on the Englischer side. My own family may have sort of pretended to be Scots-Irish, but we have a lot of German blood.
English & Scots will mix, & mix with Germans. Irish Catholics & German Catholics will mix.
French Métis. The inhabitants of much of the “Midwest” before the War for Independence (properly understood as the revolt of English colonists upon being told they didn’t get the land of the defeated “French & Indians”). Still some of those around, admixed, & here in the central US at least, that’s seen as classic American heritage.
The so-called American Negro. Often regarded as “other” even though they are perhaps the ethnicity most distinctly from this country.
Other indigenous nations & mixes thereof. As conquered people, they still see themselves as separate–unless you’re talking about the mixed-race descendants of the assimilated.
As an Anglo Scot I can only agree that America is totally a result of Scottish values.
The many times that I have seen the bekilted POTUS gnawing on Haggis with “tatties and Neeps” while listening to the skirl of the pipes…
Making an excuse to go to the toilet when its his turn to buy the drinks…
Showing the Lassies his sporran while making suggestive remarks about tossing the caber.
Who could NOT admit that America is Scots through and through.
That’s pretty interesting. But African American congregations in general worshipped in English, just like most people did at that time. Doesn’t that say something about the prominance of English culture in this country?
Many black Americans have Welsh last names in addition to Scots-Irish ones. Evans. Thomas. Jones. Williams. Nash. (My schoolbus driver, a black woman, was Ms. Nash. Ms. Nash don’t play. Everybody knew that.) Personally, I have an English surname name, just like most of the black people I know. There’s probably a Tamika Smith or Tyrone Jackson in every telephone directory in this country! So even though I know for a fact that I have Scots-Irish back in my woodpile somewhere (actually not too far back, just to my grandmother’s grandfather), I’m skeptical that the Scots-Irish had any more influence over African Americans than the other early European colonizers did.
The origin of black surnames are complicated anyway. Most times they can be traced back to slaveowners. Sometimes a person picked the name if it was famous (explaining the prominance of “Washington” among black folk) or because they were positively influenced by someone with that surname, like a local preacher in the area.
Terms like Italian-American, Irish-American, etc. came into common use in the mid-twentieth century. Before then it was common to refer to an American whose ancestors came from Italy, Ireland, etc. as Italian, Irish, etc., even if none of their ancestors any closer than their grandparents had ever been to those countries. The only country that you couldn’t use those forms for was England. No American was ever referred to as English. It was in effect the unmarked form.
The terms like Italian-American, Irish-American, etc. arose because members of those groups were annoyed that they were referred to with terms that seemed to imply that they were less of Americans than the American of English descent. Using the terms Italian-American, Irish-American, etc. was a political statement for them. It was their way of saying that they were no less of Americans than anyone else. Incidentally, such terms have now begun to sound a little old-fashioned. Few people normally refer to themselves by those terms.
