To the group: With all the speculative discussion we've been having about Sasser origins, I wanted to share some gleanings of a North Carolina history book that I looked at in the library. The book is pretty old, and if I find anything more recent or that changes the information, I will be glad to pass it on. Basically, there were many different nationalities in NC by 1770, and all of the groups that we have discussed are mentioned below. "The Story of North Carolina," by Alex Mathews Arnett, Ph.D. University of North Carolina Press, 1933. 1. In 1770, the general population of North Carolina (excluding native Americans) was 150,000. Of these, about 1/3 were English, 1/3 were Scottish, 1/10 were German, 1/5 were slaves, and the rest were French, Swiss, and Irish. p. 165. 2. "It was during that long and prosperous administration of Governor Johnston (1734-1752), while the Scotch were beginning their settlements in North Carolina, that the tide of Germans also settled in. And they kept coming through the rest of the colonial period. They also settled in the same general region as the Scotch-Irish -- often in adjoining communities." The general migration pattern for Germans was from Pennsylvania through MD, western VA, and into NC. p. 161. 3. Governor Gabriel Johnston himself was Scottish. p. 141. 4. "As early as 1690 a group of French Protestants, who had been driven from their native land because of their religion, had come to North Carolina and settled on the Pamlico River. In 1704 they founded Bath, the first town built in the colony. Others of the French Protestants had moved on down to the Neuse River. There they were joined in 1710 by a number of German and Swiss refugees, fleeing like the French from religious persecution." They built the second town, New Bern, in honor of Bern, Switzerland." pp. 118-119. According to a map showing the location of these various groups (p. 146), the area covered by Johnston County was mostly English, and the other groups were west and south-west of the Johnston area. Doug Sherman dougsherma@aol.com ------------------------------