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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2004-05 > 1085439756


From: "Linda Merle" <>
Subject: Re: [Sc-Ir] Favorite Scotch Irish Ancestor?
Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 16:02:44 -0700


Hi Anita,

Thanks for YOUR story! Maybe someday someone will find it in the
archives and you'll have provided them with the story of their
family's origins.

Your ancestor followed the path of 1/3rd of all Americans: he
came through Canada. (This isn't true of colonials). Unfortunately,
this means you can search American ship lists till you go blind --
but 1/3d of all post colonial immigrants are not on any. Of course
we do not have very good border crossing records either.
(You can find a complete list of American ship lists at
www.rootsweb.com/~bifhsusa ).

>I read somewhere recently that the surname Wilson was part of a large body
>of people who moved from England to Ireland in the 1700's.

?? The 1700s were not times of mass migrations to Ireland.
The 1600s were. Lots of Scots and English moved to Ireland in a
couple waves. There were Wilsons among them!

The name is English in origin, but this doesn't mean they were
English. English (Anglish) was spoken in Edinburgh while they
were still speaking French in London. Much of the south eastern
coast of Scotland was settled by Angles. Out of "Anglish" grew
two languages: Scots and English.

Surnames began as a fad -- brought by Normans from France. Though
only the upper class had them at first, and they took them from
their lands, eventually everyone had them. Though it took Parliament
to force the Welsh to take them.

-son means ... eh ... SON! LIke Mc (Gaelic). So Wil son is son
of Will. Will is of course a diminuative of William. So somewhere
along the line you had an ancestor whose dad was William.

This holds true for the Scottish lowlands as well as England.
Many of the surnames are the same. In Northern England I search
for MASON, GARDNER, ENGLISH, IRWIN, etc -- and there's plenty
of the same surnames in the villages in Scotland where the other
side of the family lived. These are occupational surnames. Sometimes
apparently you can guess where the surname came from by the form:
BAXTER is apparently the Scottish form of BAKER. This info from
the front essays of Black "Surnames of Scotland" and a few other
surname books.

>My husband and I had a delightful visit to Marietta, Ohio last year and met
>another Wilson descendant still living there. It is a beautiful town where
>the Ohio and Muskegum Rivers merge. We did get quite a bit of information
>on our Wilson's while there, among was Hugh's naturalization papers!

That's grand! I've never found my great granddad's in Michigan.
I have searched and searched. They moved to Ohio too -- Hocking.
This was much later, 1880s. There was a British colony in south
east Ohio. Lots of coalminers from Scotland and England.

>We are going to Ireland on June 6th for a 2 week tour. We won't have time
>to do any research this trip. Hopefully, we will be able to go back for
>research sometime soon.

Good! It's a waste of time to try to start Irish research in
Ireland. Instead enjoy the trip. It's a zillion times easier to
do Irish research from here in the USA. The records are in one place,
they are more easy to get, and so on.

So go have fun.

I got WILSONs too back in the 1700s. Antrim to Western PA.
Married a John ANDERSON. There were six or sevn John A's in
Lancaster County, PA. Having discovered thism my mother
gave up on genealogy!

Linda Merle

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