Scotch-Irish-L Archives

Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 1997-12 > 0881297401


From: linda Merle <>
Subject: Re: Scotch-Irish Intermarriage
Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 20:50:01 -0800


Hi John,

> This is an echo of one of James G. Leyburn's main contentions in THE
> SCOTCH-IRISH: A SOCIAL HISTORY where he contends that after the
> Revolutionary War the Scotch-Irish ceased to exist and they were no longer
> transplanted Scotsmen from Ireland but had become Americans.

On the one hand.... wasn't this the fate of ALL who stayed? (the
others became known as "Canadians"!). The English of New
England were no longer English, but Americans. The Royalists of
Virginia became Americans. The Germans became Americans too!
It isn't a unique fate.

Though I find this true:
> The ethnic stock of the community was continually strengthened by continued
> inmigration through the 1850's;

The Irish side of my family intermarried with the Germans in
Western PA, but we didn't know them because they disinherited my
great grannie for marrying an Irishman. I have been told the
Germans and the Scotch Irish did not think much of each other!

Other than that, but for an occasion Scots or English grannie,
they married within their ethnic group.

Linda Merle

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