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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2003-11 > 1068687763


From: "Linda Merle" <>
Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] More on PA Revolutionary Military Records
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 17:43:08 -0800


Hi Charles,

Yup lots of our ancestors served in state lines
not in the Continental lines. This is a pain
since then they may not appear in Federal records.
Virginia militia men are fairly well documented
and easy to find (except for the ONE you or
I is looking for). There's a list of books to
check in "THe Source". Wardell "Virginia/
West Virginia Genealogical Data from Revolutionary
War Pension and Bounty Land records" is great.
Virginia had the most men in the Revolution
and it also is one of the few states that granted
its men state land as well as Federal. NONE
of that land was in what is now Virginia. It was
in Kentucky and Ohio. So VA bounties are
very useful. Large parts of KY were set off for
vets -- so if your ancestor was there he was a
VA vet or you can find lots of court records
regarding his illegal squatting <grin>.

However you do need to use state records to
find these guys.

If they wore kilts they were probably not
Scotch Irish but Scottish highlanders. Scotch
Irish are not documented as kilt wearers. In
Ireland we got no kilts, no clans, no haggis.

My experience is that the pension records are
phenomenal and sometimes even detail the
battles that they were in.

>ONE QUESTION; Where do we find a complete list of British Militia
>Volunteers with Roger's Rangers who walked in the dead of a bad winter ,
>living off the land, from New England to Fort Quebec?

Try the web. Here's a URL. These men were not
part of the usual British army but were militia
so you would again find them in New Hampshire
records. I don't find them mentioned in
"The Forlorn Hope" in the F&I war section.

http://www.geocities.com/rogerscadetcompany/HistoryofRogersRangers.html

http://www.acidus.com/rogers.html

Regarding Wylys I am sure that there were some
in NEw England since there was a pod of them
in Ulster in mid Antrim. They were Covenantors.

Also from what I have read if the British
didn't have to ship the lads back home after
any of these wars, they were happy to settle
them in the New World. After the American
Revolution some settled in Canada. Others
slipped off to join kin south of Canada. Even
the hired German soldiers liked what they saw
enough to often stay on after they lost the
war.

There are not records of people crossing in
the 1700's. The concept of keeping track of
them occured to the US congress in 1820 but
before that only happenstance got crossings
documented, with a few exceptions, like the
study the British Gov did right before the
Revolution to see what kind of people were
coming. But few Irish were actually documented
in that study.

The records that do survive are published and
indexed in Filby. So you check Filby. You
can do this the old fashioned way in a library
or subscribe to an on line library or buy/borrow
the CD.

The scholars are still arguing about how many
Scotch Irish came to America as well as how many
Scots were living in Ireland at any particular
time, etc. That's because we don't have records
so we can't count them. Since we don't have
records we will never know who came and when
or even how many came.

Linda Merle

Linda Merle

They were checking
>on Indian and French strength and attitudes, and found Fort Quebec
>empty. %The Present U.S. Army Rangers took the Rangers name and training
>and living off the land from Roger's Rangers. I have seen a PBS special
>on the Rangers and they named a James Wyly among the Rangers- but no
>spelling of names. I had heard through family tales that one Wyly came
>with British and returned to Ireland, and returned to the Colonies later.
> later. Wonder how many more may have two entry dates like those with no
>record of their return to Ireland or England, esp. if they were on a
>Military ship ?
>
>Thanks, and keep up the good work,
>
>Charles A. Wyly
>
>

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