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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2001-03 > 0983596601


From: "Knut W. Barde" <>
Subject: [Scotch-Irish] methodical approach
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 21:16:41 -0800
References: <d8.28f866f.27c433b2@aol.com>





Leyburn, in his book the Scotch-Irish, discusses the five waves of emigration to the colonies, 1717/18, 1725/29,
1740, 1753/54, and 1774. For each of these periods he quotes sources that provide a sense of the magnitude of
emigration, the type of people that left, and the locations from where they left. No doubt other historians have
similar summaries.

It seems to me that it ought to be possible with the fast computers we have these days to create a data base that
uses all publically available genealogy information, including private genealogies that have been published, and
sources like the LDS website, to create one list that contains the names of all known scotch-irish emigrants from
the European side and scotch-irish immigrants on this side, the circumstances and dates of their passage, etc.,
etc. The total for the five waves is estimated at 200,000 to 400,000, and it seems that once one has a set of
data of a subset of individuals that are accurately known (does anyone even have a guess of how many of the 200k
to 400k are known for certain?), one can then plot and trace the preferred locations of departure and arrival,
places of residence in Ireland and in the colonies, clustering of groups and names and dates, etc. So far it
seems all one gets is a pile of unconnected and/or anecdotal accounts. There must be an intermediate step
between saying 5000 came in 1717/18 and gggggdaddy John arrived on the good ship Hope in Philadelphia on June 1,
1717.

When entire villages in Ireland were emptied according to their bishops and others who addressed the issue, there
must be more data out there than has been accessible to the general public. Thousands of people on clustered
dates and clustered regions did the same thing for decades on end, and it is from these individual data that the
summaries referred to above were compiled.

Would the burning of the Irish records in ? really have destroyed the kind of compilations of data that I am
wondering about?

If the abc religious population of village xyz in 1740 up and went to America, then that would be a significant
piece of information.

Such a methodical approach obviously costs money.

But imagine if there were one list with every known scotch-irish immigrant and the pertinent data, and the ability
to then massage that data in a myriad different ways to reveal trends, clusters, connections, etc., etc.

Sort of a quantitative approach to genealogy, which probably goes against the grain of the old school that says,
nothing doing except primary records.

I guess I am looking for something similar to the books called Germans to America, except searchable for all data
fields. Is there set of books called Scotch-Irish to America?

The fact that genealogy is such a personal and individual endeavour seems to take our eyes away from aggregating
data that then could result in documented group migration patterns for specific groups, locations, time periods.

Someone will probably say this is the lazy person's dream of genealogy.


Knut




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