DNA-R1B1C7-L Archives

Archiver > DNA-R1B1C7 > 2007-09 > 1190642587


From: "R. C. Mac Donald" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA-R1B1C7] Where we got the name "Scotch-Irish?"
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:03:07 -0400
References: <092320071410.11008.46F673BD000AB67100002B0022135285730A049D0A0304@comcast.net>


Linda,

Thanks for the information on "Scotch-Irish;" it agrees closely with how I've understood the term from what I remember of a course on Irish immigration I took some years ago when I was working on my master's. There are two points I'd like to comment on, though.

First, while, as you say, the term primarily designates Protestant Ulstermen and their Appalachian descendants, there were many Catholics among the emigrants, and if the Scotch-Irish today are overwhelmingly Protestant this may owe as much to the absence of Catholic clergy in early America as it does to the comparative numbers of the two religions among the first settlers.

Second, maybe it's a testimony to the influence of royal opinion, but Elizabeth I's identification of the McDonalds as "Scotch-Irish" continues to be an obstacle to genealogical research of that surname. When I say my family is Irish, more often than not I'm told that they were really Scottish gallowglasses who first entered Ireland in the 1400s or that they were Presbyterians who were planted in Ulster in the 1600s. Well, either of those <i>may</i> be true, but it's also possible that I'm descended from those "other" Mac Domhnaills, native Irish with no connection at all to the Scottish Clan Donald. Most discussions of Clan Donald genealogy make no mention of this possibility; for example, on the Clan Donald USA DNA project site, those who do not test R1a (the haplotype of Somerled and of the present recognized clan chiefs) are assured that this doesn't mean they are not "real" MacDonalds -- some descend from Somerled through a female ancestor, some from servants who assumed their lord's name, some from "non-paternal" events. All real possibilities, but it ignores the fact that there may be some "real" Mac Donalds out there who have no connections with Somerled's grandson at all.

R.C. Mac Donald

----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:>
To: <mailto:>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 10:10 AM
Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] Where we got the name "Scotch-Irish?"


Hi folks,
Actually there's a lot of very old nonsense available on the Internet and in old books that are reprinted and in some cases burnt into CDs on this topic. It marries well with old prejudices and new. However the Scotch Irish Society, which is a scholarly organization, has several members who have spent considerable time and effort researching the subject. These people actually access primary source material (not old refurbished and possibly nonsensical stuff).
They hold a biannual symposium. It's a scholarly thing. Genealogists, etc, are welcome to attend and are even occassionally invited to present a paper there. To get a paper presented is rather like a dry run for a PHD. I've run the gauntlet. First you get the lectures on proper footnoting, at least you do if like me you don't have a Phd!!, then the content lectures begin -- no refurbished, unsourced garbage such as infests the Internet, etc. You need to be able to prove your statements. Actually root canals are more pleasant. I am sure it's not so bad if you've got a Phd and are one of their buddies or someone they respect already --perhaps.
The presentations are academic -- meaning that the entertainment value, which is important for genealogy lectures -- is not so important. What is is content. A lot of scholars present early papers, all on topics surrounding the Scotch Irish, hoping to get some feedback from the audience so they can refine the papers and eventually get them published. It may come as some surprise to many here, but the field of Scotch-Irish scholarship is alive and burgeoning at various universities on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact the symposium always draws scholars from Ulster. Much old stuff is being re-examined and much new discovered.
Then the best papers are published in the Journal of Scotch-Irish Studies. I have had a paper published in it. More commonly, the publishers are respectable members of academia. In any case one member, a professor emeritus at a prestigous southern university, did extensive research on the name Scotch Irish. Tthe estate where most of the early 1718 'five ship' settlers came from to New England is now discovered -- and published in the Scotch Irish Journal. People are always asking where these folk came from....it's easy to learn where to search the actual estate records for your specifics -- just by reading the Scotch-Irish Journal. (The Connolly estate)
One scholar uncovered the earliest usage of the term -- to date -- by Queen Elizabeth I. She used it to complain about the McDonalds in Ireland in the 1500s. These are Gaelic speaking, Catholic highlanders. Little is known of its usage in Ireland in the 1600s except that Irish students matriculating at the University of Glasgow, etc, were identified in Latin as Scoti hibernicus: Scotch Irish. The term has been found in early America, specifically New Jersey, where it was used to distinguish native Irish from ethnic Ulster Scots -- meaning people who were, by that time, almost exclusively Presbyterian and who believed their ancestors were from Scotland.
The differentiation between Scots and Scotch is a modern one by modern day Scots who have no scholarship. If they had, they would have viewed parish records in Scotland where the term Scotch is often used by Scots to refer to themselves. Old publications also use the term. I do hav Scottish ancestors and have viewed many parish records and have seen that evidence for myself.
If anyone is actually interested, you can find the Scotch-Irish Journal for sale on the Internet by googling. I can give you the email of the scholar I mentioned before. I believe I have a copy of an article he wants posted to my website.
According to the scholars, the term is only properly applied to an American ethnic group comprised largely of Protestant emigrants from Ulster who settled in Appalachia. The ones who settled in New ENgland assimilated into Yankee, for example. They have no unique ethnic identity any more, though they settled western New England and took many an arrow for the Yankees. A simple eyeball of DNA in Virginia and Cumberland projects tells you lots of their origins were ultimately, Irish. Lots of r1b1c7 amongst them. The number have never added up -- of the folk claiming to come from Scotland. Sorry, but lots of Irish assimilated in. ALso many Germans, French, English, etc, etc, assimilated in to the ethnic group Scotch Irish in America, as well as Irish -- in America.
As an ethnic group, genes don't matter -- your habits, etc, are what make an ethnic group.
The Scotch-irish list at rootsweb has extensive discussions on this, though to tell the truth, we cut them sh ort by refering people to scholarly material. Those with divergent opinions should prove their theories to the scholars -- then the rest of us will change our tune. Stuff with no scholarship or proof is just hearsay. The list is really for learning (real stuff) not spreading more unprovable old nonsense, so we take a strong stance in favor of scholarship on the list. There are a number on the list in both Ireland and the USA. So it is one place to get an informed opinion. One scholar who edits the Irish biography project is on list, for example. Sometimes there's Irish well known abroad but forgotten in Ireland....or vice versa, so she sometimes learns something from the rest of us.
I admin it and run the webpages (http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~merle<http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~merle>; ) badly in need of an update, btw! We get a lot of folk from outside the USA who mistake the name to mean "maybe we're Irish and maybe we're Scots, or maybe we're both!", but actually, we tend to know a lot about Protestant church records in Ireland. I do do genealogy professionally and a fair amount of that is trying to trace people between Ireland and Scotland. There are ways to do it -- sometimes. DNA sure does help! It's our last resort....as you all know!
My ancestors were all kinds, and I was born and raised on the northern end of Appalachia (Pittsburgh). My main interest is methodologies for doing genealogy in Ireland BCH (Before CHurch Records).
Linda Merle

-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to <mailto:> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message


This thread: