On May 27th John Giacoletti and I travel to Northern Ireland to begin a three week trip to research those families who defended Derry during the great siege. While rootsweb claims to have in excess of 20,000 surname lists we are interested in less than one hundred. That is the approximate number of families we have found that have roots both at Derry and King's Mountain and it is the migration of these families from Ulster to the Carolinas by way of Pennsylvania, Virgina and other places that we wish to explore. I could not be happier with my travelling companion who by all accounts is a scholar. John and I both attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a M.A there in 17th Century British literature and for two years was a Wilson Library Fellow and assistant to the Curator of Rare Books. For his thesis he did a manuscript attribution study and gained great skill in reading the Elizabethan hand. I was a business major and am included on this trip because I drive well on the left side of the road!! In order to help the researcher gain a better understanding of his or her Ulster roots three documents have been offered to the lists during the past few months. The first and by all accounts the most popular, has been the thesis by Professor James W. Hagy entitled, "Castle's Woods: Frontier Virginia Settlement, 1769-1799 published 1966 at East Tennessee St. University. The importance of Castle's Woods is twofold. First, it had its day of importance as a stepping stone to the West and secondly, it is important as a case study of the American frontier. I actually located Professor Hagy a month or so ago, thirty-seven years after he wrote this thesis and had a nice conversation with him. The second item offered was a two book set by the Reverend Alexander Lecky; "The Laggan and its Presbyterianism" and "In the Days of the Laggan Presbytery" published in Belfast 1905 and 1908. The Laggan is the area between the river Foyle and the upper reaches of Lough Swilly, and extending in one direction from Lifford to Letterkenny. It formed the most productive and desireable portion of the ancient territory of Tyrconnell. These books represent the first published source of early settlers (Presbyterian elders) arranged by Parish and TOWNLAND. To know who sat in the pew next to you is really exciting if you are researching allied families of your direct line. I will not list all the names of the people listed in Lecky's books except to say that if I send this post to your list it is because a person with the same surname is listed as an elder in the Appendix. The last and most detailed offering is titled, "A History of the Siege of Londonderry and Defence of Enniskillen in 1688 and 1689, with Historical Poetry and Biographical Notes, & by the Reverend John Graham, M.A., Rector of Migilligan, in the Diocese of Derry. The Battles of the Boyne, Athlone, and Aughrim, the Siege and Capitulation of Limmerick, by Lord McCaulay., Toronto, McClear & Publishers, 1869. What a title!! They don't write em like that any more. I sacrificed my copy to the copy machine as it was in poor condition and now it is for all purposes destroyed, but it copied really well. From the forward we read the following: "In bringing out a new edition of Mr. Graham's narrative of the Siege of Derry, and enhancing its value by descriptions from Lord McCaulay's graphic pen, the publishers conceive that they are conferring a benefit upon the reading public of Canada-for the events which these pages record are such as we do not willingly let die. Apart altogether from the political and religious aspects of the question, the romance of history never had a fairer theme. Truth is proverbially stranger than fiction, and never did the all-exiting elements of truth gather in sterner compression than around these memorable hundred days. What fiction ever imagined excitements and sensations more thrilling? and yet they are no morbid fancies of the distempered brain, but events which actually happened, events from whose enactment and results, the destinies of a nation were changed." I will keep sending these documents to as many people as want them up until May 1st. Contact me at [email protected] for details. Upon our return all findings will be posted to our website (under construction) and the lists will be notified. It is not possible to remain on all of the lists all of the time so feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any specific questions. Thanks to those people who sent us e-mails so far with their family lines that tie to Derry and King's Mountain. Regards, Robert Cowan John Giacoletti