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From: "Sarah" <>
Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:47:30 -0500
References: <33b15.6917ce5b.390a17e7@aol.com><613AEAB9085B4656BFFE94848951DDE1@WoodyPC>
In-Reply-To: <613AEAB9085B4656BFFE94848951DDE1@WoodyPC>


Hi list,
My Scotch-Irish also were in York Co.SC. came down from PA in
1767......established a Presbyterian church and my Flemings were 5 of the
first elders in that church...........many of their relatives and extended
family and friends were on the roll of the church and in the cemetary list I
have. So SI were well represented in York Co. SC.
Sarah

----- Original Message -----
From: "W.F. Stephens" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 6:21 PM
Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan


> The Carolinas Piedmonts had large settlement of Scotch-Irish. Many came
> in
> through Philadelphia and made their ways down the Great Philadelphia Wagon
> Road in to the Piedmont. The Council of South Carolina encouraged
> emigration directly from Ulster by offering land to Protestant settlers
> because of concerned that the majority of persons in the colony were
> slaves
> from Africa. One congregation that left Monaghan for New York in the
> Cahans
> Exodus relocated to Cane Creek on the South Carolina frontier.
>
> Woody Stephens
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: <>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 6:59 PM
> To: <>
> Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan
>
>> Linda,
>>
>> I don't think the chances are good of finding much about them. I have a
>> John Ellis that married a Mary Quinn, from the early 1700's. It looks
>> like
>> John may have been born in MD, of English or Welch parent's. His mother
>> was a
>> Clarke. Mary Quinn's father was Henry, but it doesn't say where he was
>> born. Somehow they married in Rowen County, NC, but John died in York,
>> SC.
>> Did they have a large Scotch-Irish population there?
>>
>> Bonnie O'Neil
>>
>>
>> In a message dated 4/28/2010 3:42:30 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
>> writes:
>>
>> Hi Bonnie,
>>
>> There are no Scotch Irish names, alas. Every single one of them is
>> something else, like American names. That's because just as most
>> Americans came
>> here from somewhere else, excepting a few Indians (who had no surnames),
>> Ireland was a place to go to and so many people went there. In Ulster
>> natives
>> had no surnames until the English imposed them on them in the early
>> 1600s.
>> Though there were no laws stating that you had to keep the one your
>> father
>> used. Still aren't! (In the rest of Ireland, under English rule
>> centuries
>> earlier, the Statutes of Kilkenny in the 14th century (or so...) forced
>> Irish
>> living u nder English control to take a surname).
>>
>> There are people who think you can tell someone's religion by their
>> surname, but these people are often wrong. Individuals have religions
>> and
>> can
>> change them at will. Surnames are inherited (and can be changed at will
>> too).
>> So when a young man of one religion marries a woman of another, some
>> kind
>> of compromise is made. Perhaps the children are raised in a different
>> religion than the father's. If he was an Irish Catholic and the children
>> were
>> raied Protestant -- voila! You have a 'Scotch Irish" surname.
>>
>> I think you are probably trying to figure out where to find them.
>>
>> ELLIS is an English surname, found in Dublin (where Irish people were
>> not
>> allowed to live at one time) as early as 1281, says MacLysaght. It is
>> not
>> identified with any particular region of Ireland and is commonest in
>> Leinster and Ulster. Bell in "Book of Ulster Surnames" has more
>> information on the
>> Ulster surname. He discusses it in the context of Elliott, as a variant.
>> He notes Ellis is very common in Antrim. Says most in Ulster arrived in
>> the
>> post Plantation period. This name will not help you locate them in
>> Ireland.
>> It's important to recall that many Irish did leave from other parts of
>> Ireland as well as Ulster in the colonial period.
>>
>> QUINN is one of the 20 most common names in Ireland, found everywhere.
>> It
>> is commonest in Ulster. It is the most common name in Tyrone and one of
>> the
>> first 10 in Armagh. Though the 11th most common in Monaghan in 1890 by
>> 1970 it was the 57th suggesting much emigration. The O'Quinns of Tyrone
>> were
>> an important sept of Cenel Eoghain, closely related to the O'Hagans,
>> thus
>> O'Neills. Other septs include an O'Quinn group from the person name
>> Conn,
>> based in northern Antrim, Clare and Longford. Bell indicates by custom
>> the
>> Catholics use QUINN and Protestant QUIN. Although this must be recent,
>> since
>> without public schools or much educational opportunities in a language
>> that
>> had not set fixed spelling for surnames, who could spell a surname???
>>
>> Other problems: at the start of the 20th century Quinn was used
>> interchangably with Cunnea in Donegal, with MacConaghy and Queen in
>> Monaghan, and
>> Quenn in Armagh city, and Whin and Whinn in southeast Down.
>>
>> So the Quin would appear to be Irish, most likely. Neither name is a
>> clue
>> to where they were from. This is often the case. Once you figure out
>> where
>> they are from then local history may tell you the history of the
>> instance
>> of the surname there, where your ancestors came from.
>>
>> DNA probably would ID the quadrant of Ireland that they came from as
>> well.
>> By finding a match to a man with a known location in Ireland, you could
>> assume yours came from nearby.
>>
>> Religion can be a great help, or rather, some religions can be. For
>> example surnames associated with small groups like the Quakers and the
>> Reformed
>> Presbyterians are significant. There were only a few groups in Ireland,
>> so
>> knowing your ancestors were members of these groups limits you to those
>> locations and suggests studying their history may also turn up
>> information.
>> Some of the surnames in the RP groups have been stable for 300 years.
>>
>> But don't be misled. I seem to recall someone once posting to the list
>> who
>> couldn't find any records for their family in a county in Ireland.
>> However
>> their ancestors were Protestant. Someone on the list knew that there
>> were
>> many people with the su rname in the county -- but they were Catholic.
>> So
>> someone changed religion. don't let this be a cause for you to fail to
>> find
>> them.
>>
>> Best of luck!
>>
>> Linda Merle
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From:
>> To:
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 5:47:32 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>> Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan
>>
>> Linda,
>>
>> Can you tell me if the Ellis or Quinn family names are Scotch-Irish? If
>> so,
>> where in Ireland do they show up?
>>
>> Bonnie O'Neil
>>
>>
>> In a message dated 3/9/2010 3:27:10 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
>> writes:
>>
>> Hi Bill, I haven't googled recently so I can't tell you what there is on
>> line for the RP church in Wilkinsburg.
>>
>> The RP Seminary library is just up the road apiece. I don't know what
>> they
>> got either since when I visited
>> there last I hadn't revisited the will of my ancestor (collected by
>> mother
>> and sister) and as a result of a lot
>> of learning, realized that the witness to the will was now known to me.
>> I
>> guess I should go back.
>>
>> Linda
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "William McKinney" <>
>> To:
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 2:26:46 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>> Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan
>>
>> Howdy Linda,
>>
>> Just curious. Are there any accounts on line relating to the Reformed
>> Presbyterian Church in Wilkinsburg. That's where my McKinneys ended up
>> after
>> selling their Braddocks Field farm to Andrew Carnegie for his steel
>> works.
>>
>> Bill McKinney
>> In Erie (which, yes, got precious little snow this year compared to
>> last)
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> [mailto:] On Behalf Of
>>
>> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 5:11 PM
>> To:
>> Subject: Re: [S-I] Mitchell, Scotch/Irish New York to Michigan
>>
>> Hi Richard,
>>
>> This doesn't quite make sense to me:
>>>My FTDNA, (67 Y Markers Tested), shows overwhelming Scotch and Irish
>> ancestry with Irish being slightly higher than Scotch.
>>
>> Thats not how Y DNA results are reported (in any useful fashion). Are
>> you
>> refering to the familytreedna page of Recent Ancestral Origins? That's
>> not
>> accurate at all. It just sees where people that match you (who have
>> origins)
>> come from. A lot don't list origins and some are wrong.
>>
>> Go with your haplogroup. The haplogroup is of course fuzzy too for a
>> couple
>> reasons: We don't know where they originated (though the scientists have
>> theories -- which change every two years) and who cares -- we want to
>> know
>> where your immediate ancestors were living. If you turn up NW Irish, you
>> can
>> assume they were in Ulster or nearby areas of Scotland -- ie it gives
>> you
>> some clues.
>>
>> What's the haplogroup? And who do you match to? You may find matches
>> with
>> a
>> different
>> surname because surnames are fairly recent, but they're a clue. If you
>> tell
>> us a few of
>> them, maybe we can tell from the surnames where they might have come
>> from,
>> unless it was
>> Glasgow....same surnames in parts of Glasgow as in northern Ireland
>> because
>> so many
>> went over.
>>
>> The point is though that these are statistical and your unique history
>> is
>> unique and not based on statistics. You use the statistics to figure out
>> where the best places are to search.
>>
>> You don't have enough info to search in Scotland. You need to follow
>> George
>> back through the censuses as far as you can. You might find him living
>> as
>> a
>> child in a household with his parents. Anyway the census work will give
>> you
>> an approximate date of birth. Then censuses also tell you where he was
>> born
>> -- what state. You should also try to find an obit for him and see if
>> you
>> can view the actual death record, not a death certificate. This is
>> dependent
>> on the state he died in. What state did he die in?
>>
>> You also need to gather all his siblings, their dates of birth and where
>> they were born
>> from the censuses. These are clues, esp. ones born in Scotland. There
>> are
>> plenty of James Mitchells there, but with the names of children and
>> maybe
>> spouse, you can narrow it down. Since he was born in the USA and his
>> father
>> in Scotland probably his father was in the USA at the time of his birth
>> and
>> you can trace him backwards in the censuses. Then you look for a
>> naturalization record. If he was in the USA in 1812, if he was not
>> naturalized he should be listed as an alien. the book is in Ancestry. You
>> want to search for a naturalization record for the father and then first
>> papers. The first papers are more likely to nail down his origins.
>> However
>> the people who stood for him are critical people. Like in the case of a
>> client of mine whose ancstors claimed to be Scots, the men who stood for
>> him
>> when he naturalized were both first generation Irish. They didn't
>> randomly
>> go somewhere in the USA -- they went to where other people from the
>> family
>> and/or village went. It's called c!
>> hain migration. So you always look up those guys in the censuses and see
>> what you can learn about them. They are clues.
>>
>> Similarly, one of the sons of the Rev. John Black, who also became a
>> minister, witnessed the
>> will of a Kelly ancestor of mine. Why? He died north of the Allegheny
>> and
>> this man's church
>> was in Wilkinsburg. Because of some previous tie, that's why. There were
>> Kellys associated
>> with the Reformed Presbyterian church in Wilkinsburg but so far I've not
>> found the origins
>> of mine -- but it is an important clue to where they were before they
>> manifested in Indiana
>> Twp (Allegheny Co).
>>
>>>I apologise to any of those who I may have offended on the list,
>>
>> Actually I did more offending than you today. You didn't offend anyone
>> at
>> all.
>>
>> Good luck!
>>
>> Linda Merle
>>
>>
>>
>>
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