Well one lives and learns! Been there but now I just answer confirming a tiny detail, sometimes I get a "Thanks, I'll add that to my file!"...nothing else.. I then email weeks later and ask why they are not reciprocating as I have a lot more details on that family line. Usually get a pile of demanding questions, then I reply that I only work with those willing to share....Their loss, not mine! DH On 15/12/2011 08:00, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > But I, too, have had demanding letters insisting that I hand over all the > information I have about my families. A few times I have given some > ancestral material, but seldom have I had a simple "thank you."

Murray I'm off to babysit for my daughter up in Milton 2 blocks from Global Genealogy. I know Sandy and Rick who own it so I'm going to check 2 OSM volumes for Fermanagh because I've found Bell and Elliot in same area in Ferm. No Bell no Elliott listed in Monaghan at all in index. I have all the volumes for Londonderry and Antrim and there's a reference for James Elliot in Coleraine, LY which I'll check later. It's worth a try. Your ancestors just might have come over from Scotland originally. Have you done your DNA and listed it with family tree or not? People find a lot of information this way. Makes for a great present. I did my brothers and the 2 friends who take care of our place in Florida as a thank you and you wouldn't believe what I found on them. It's extremely complicated to say the least but a fun challenge to learn too. Must go, Susan > From: murraybel@msn.com > Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:15:50 -0500 > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [S-I] Tithe Applotment Books..with Bells on!! > > This got me doing a lot of research and looking at maps etc. What I know is this. My gg grandmother Frances Elliott was born in County Monaghan about 1814. She married jeremiah Bell in the 1830's. There is a jeremiah Bell on the Tithe applotment Books living in the townland of Figevly (now Feegavla) in Inniskeen Parish, Monaghan. Jeremiah and Frances had a son, William born about 1838. The family immigrated to Canada in 1840. In the 1842 Canadian census they are living in Fitzroy Township, carleton County, ontario. They are tenants on a farm owned by David Elliot who came about 1830 from the Kingscourt area of County Cavan, Ireland. I have determined that Frances is definitely not a daughter of David Elliott but Is probably related somehow (maybe a niece). Both the Bell & Elliott families were Wesleyan Methodist. > > Now , it appears that Feegavla & Kingscourt are no more than 15K apart. I think that there is a strong possibility that Jeremiah Bell, Frances Elliott, and David Elliott knew each other through the same church. Since Methodists used the C of I in those days, I am thinking I should try to track down the C of I records both at Kingscourt Cavan and at Inniskeen, Monaghan. Any other suggestions? > > Another question. Feegavala is in Inniskeen Parish , Monagahan and Kingscourt is in Enniskeen Parish, Cavan. Are Inniskeen & Enniskeen the same Parish although in different counties? > > Murray, Bell > > On Nov 23, 2011, at 8:18 PM, D H wrote: > > > Well just off hand...you've Clontibret, Inniskeen and Carrickmacross... > > > > > > Clontibret records only have one Bell and as the bride gets married in her church you might need to look elsewhere for Bells; > > > > 10th Sept1867 William Bell son of George Bell of Toome, married Margaret Leathem dau of Robert Leathem of Avalreagh, witnesses Robert > > > > Leathem + James Sloan Performed by Archdeacon of Clogher Rev John C.Wolfe > > > > > > 10th Sept1891 James Campbell son of Samuel Campbell of Clontibret, married Annie Elliott dau of Samuel + Isabella Elliott of Avalreagh, Clontibret, > > witnesses James Finlay + Minnie Elliott Performed by Rev E.J.Bury (Annie's sister Minnie married on 4th Mar1897 to James Finlay son of John Finlay of > > Avalreagh) she also had sisters Charlotte, Margaret Jane, brother Robert Donaldson Elliott, > > > > > > So you have Bell of Toome, Elliott of Clontibret and Avalreagh.... BUT are they part of your lot?? > > > > St Colman's church in Clontibret would get you Elliotts!! > > > > http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/monaghan/photos/tombstones/monaghan-st-colmans/target11.html is an Elliott g/stone there > > > > http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/monaghan/photos/tombstones/monaghan-st-colmans/target2.html will get you the Minister's name/address/phone number > > > > http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/monaghan/photos/tombstones/markers.htm will get you the index to 100's of g/stone photos that I and a few > > others have put on IGP site for Monaghan > > > > http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ will get you the counties list where you can search g/stones in other counties. > > > > Plus there is a general'search' button... > > > > > > > > On 24/11/2011 00:10, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > >> From: Murray Bell<murraybel@msn.com> > >> Subject: Re: [S-I] Tithe Applotment Books.. > >> To:scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > >> Message-ID:<BLU0-SMTP135FC2F9DD6AA1803D7D7B6AECE0@phx.gbl> > >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >> > >> DH > >> > >> Good advice. Checked out some adjoining townlands in Griffiths& 1911 census. Found Bells in both on a adjoining townland-Lower Cordrummans. Can't access Tithe books on line, Will get over to the library next week to check them out. > >> > >> The Bells in Griffiths and the 1911 census were Church of Ireland. Do you where the nearby C of I churches were? > >> > >> thanks, murray > > > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

This thread still isn't going quite the way I'd hoped! I do NOT want to put people off trying to contact their relatives in Northern Ireland; quite the opposite. Northern Ireland people are not scary; probably less scary in general than anyone else you will encounter worldwide; most people are decent, warm and welcoming, and even if you don't make contact with actual relatives, someone else in the locality may well turn out to be an interesting contact, so if you don't get a response from your initial attempt, look for someone else online who may be able to help. Check out the local history society, or the local Women's Institute, or the church that your ancestors went to What I was trying to say in my two previous communications was that you have to make allowances for a few cultural differences, (especially note that when we get a letter we would expect that a return address will be on the letter and not just on the envelope), and don't feel rejected if for some reason you don't receive an immediate reply. There may be a perfectly valid reason why someone doesn't reply; family distractions, going on holiday, wrong address...so just don't take it personally! Linde

I can attest to that, especially about Linde Lunney who is the grand niece of the husband of my 1st cousin 3 times removed. She is one of the kindest and intelligent people I have met on either side of the Atlantic. And as for someone breaking the lock on the chest of treasures, well, that happened to us. Prompted by an inquiry from Linde, I was able to track down the wills of some wealthy mutual relatives whose legacy should have gone to the Irish cousins as well as the American ones, and we still have not tracked down the money. As for crossing the sea, I wrote letters and enlisted the help of a local historian in County Antrim who was also interested in genealogy. I followed up the letters with a phone call. Thus, I have become friends with 7 of my distant N. Irish cousins, separated by time, and culture. Most are at the 4th cousin level. And the truth is that lots of the expressions and behaviors I experienced growing up were in common parlance there in Antrim - so personally, I felt at home instantly. I think they did too. However, after several letters and a phone call (spoke to him personally) I have still not heard from a man who has the burial records at a church there, BUT I know it is true that he farms and takes care of his mother in a nursing home and works at another job too. Deb On 12/14/11, Lunney Family <jglunney@eircom.net> wrote: > This thread still isn't going quite the way I'd hoped! I do NOT want > to put people off trying to contact their relatives in Northern > Ireland; quite the opposite. Northern Ireland people are not scary; > probably less scary in general than anyone else you will encounter > worldwide; most people are decent, warm and welcoming, and even if > you don't make contact with actual relatives, someone else in the > locality may well turn out to be an interesting contact, so if you > don't get a response from your initial attempt, look for someone else > online who may be able to help. Check out the local history society, > or the local Women's Institute, or the church that your ancestors > went to > What I was trying to say in my two previous communications was that > you have to make allowances for a few cultural differences, > (especially note that when we get a letter we would expect that a > return address will be on the letter and not just on the envelope), > and don't feel rejected if for some reason you don't receive an > immediate reply. There may be a perfectly valid reason why someone > doesn't reply; family distractions, going on holiday, wrong > address...so just don't take it personally! > > Linde > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Hi, LInda, I am just getting to my mail from last week as we were away and now I have a huge number of mail messages, mostly proposals to cut me in on a big inheritance deal if only I will send all my personal info to a stranger who is not very good at writing English and lives in Nigeria. I have had some help in the last few years with some genealogy stuff, mostly because people found some of my queries or comments online and wrote back to me. My dad's mother was born a Milligan, but I did not know where her parents came from except that the census said "Ireland" for place of birth. Now come a couple of cousins...one descended from my great grandfather's brother, another from another brother, and now one from my great great grandfather's brother (my ancestors paternal uncle) so things are starting to come together a little, especially that they were from Fermanagh and we now have the townland and some of the birth and marriage records and the church. I had worked on this gang for over 10 years with no luck and suddenly I am getting a lot more information to fill in the blanks. But I, too, have had demanding letters insisting that I hand over all the information I have about my families. A few times I have given some ancestral material, but seldom have I had a simple "thank you." On the other hand I have had generous people like you and others who have helped me a lot. I guess it's just like anything...there are creeps, jerks, nasties and idiots looking for their ancestors as well as nice folks who are interested, interesting and willing to share or swap info. Maybe we should just divorce the other folks, huh? Cousin Marilyn ----- Original Message ----- From: <lmerle@comcast.net> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 11:03 AM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > Hi Marilyn, > > This is my major grudge: > >>I know what you mean about giving information...I don't really anticipate >>reciprocity, but a "thank you" would sure be nice sometimes. > > I think sometimes people don't realize how they 'come off'. I've had > people send me an email that consisted for one sentence: Send me all the > information you have on *****". No "HI, I'm ..... and I'm researching the > ?? family in >>>>". It's like a hold up. I had a guy demand all the > surnames in my files at 23andme and the names of my parents and > grandparents. Of course many I have no blood relationship to (married > ins). Plus it's a huge security risk to send someone a file with the names > of your parents and grandparents. I don't do it. > > If people aren't willing to engage in a little dialog to figure out how we > might be related I don't send them anything. Unfortunately a lot of these > are men. Women seem to be able to handle the communication part a little > better <grin>. You shouldn't send private information to aggressive > strangers on the Internet. It's a security risk. > > The other problem are the people who think you should drop everything in > your life and immediately start working full time on their (ie your) > genealogy problem. Hey, we got lives, and a few of us got priorities > already. When you explain that you want to research the problem but can't > right now they get angry. Life does interfere with genealogy -- illnesses > for example. "Dear XXX I will do as you demand as soon as I recover from > this multiple organ transplant surgery. Otherwise my heirs will send a > huge crate with my LIfe's Work and you can write the dang book." > > I had one old grouch recently send me a spreadsheet full of DNA and expect > that I'd analyze it all and come up with the same results as himself. I > have been kind of ill with sinuses and thinking hurt. Reading his email > hurt too.... What happened to the good old days when people published > their results or at least wrote up a paragraph or two about it, attaching > the raw data as an appendix, I wonder? I explained to him I didn't have > time to re-analyze his results and if he could just explain what he thinks > he's found and why its significant I'd read that and maybe that would help > me understand the spreadsheet. He responded that he was through with me > and would never send me another email again. I was so happy to hear that. > Christmas presents arriving and it wasn't even December yet! > > Reminded me of a comedy team a firm I worked for hired for a trade show. > At the end they did a spontaneous show for the staff in which they said of > our marketing director that he was a "Legend in his own mind". > > An alzheimers patient or a retired executive? Hard to tell. > > Linda Merle > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Hi Cindy, bolding and italicizing doesn't work on Rootsweb lists that accept only straight text, so...eh, can you extract the parts you want us to note? Also I think we cannot be so sure about literacy rates in Ireland because we do not have the records to analyze. In England we know when schools were started and the laws about who went. I don't recall them, but a book like "Ancestry Trails" can detail it. Quite early! So most people had some education. However systems that worked in England and Scotland didn't function in Ireland. In the days when the established church parish performed many civil functions, for example, almost everyone in England and Scotland puts in some kind of appearance in the records. In Ireland, evading the established church (not to mention the government) was the norm. Public education got off to a very late start as well. Not everyone spoke English in Ireland and a law was passed making it illegal to preach or teach in Irish. This meant children whose only tongue was Irish were segregated. If they had not had this law, probably the Irish would have assimilated into "Brit" and we've have lost both Irish and what passes today as the traditional culture of Ireland. Many Irish children were taught in hedge schools. Much of the populist lit on hedge schools makes it sound like only Catholic children attended them. However some scholars like Elliott (See "Catholics of Ulster") find evidence that these were community schools and that Protestants often attended them as well. In the past, according to this kind of scholar, there was less segregation then we have today or even had in the early 1800s. Later on, after Catholic Emancipation in the mid 1800s, the church set up its own schools. There really isn't mixed public school education in Ireland, even today. I personally consider this a great loss. I first learned that Catholics didn't have horns, cloven hoofs and tiny red tails in first grade, under the teacher's desk. We didn't have a local Catholic school. I don't know when the Catholics in town, who went to parochial school, learned the facts of life. However I do know that after that I didn't believe everything my parents told me and so the hippy generation came to be. I don't recall how it is that I came to believe such things at age six, but clearly there were some strange people around me. I also believed the devil lived in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. I once saw one and was afraid to touch it for fear of being burnt. It didn't glow, which was a hopeful sign <grin>. Back then apparently Presbyterians in western Pennsylvania, at least, harkened back to the days of the Black Oath, in the 1630s, and later occasions, when Presbyterians and Catholics were oppressed together. Well off kids went to private schools. Presbyterians were late in starting them. Catholic children of moneyed homes went to the Continent. Dissenters were not allowed in Irish universities. This includes Presbyterians. You had to be Church of Ireland which excluded almost everyone living in Ireland from a university education. Some Ulster Scots of course went to Scotland for university or schooling, but not our ancestors who were dirt farmers for the most part. This is during the Penal Times, which didn't really begin till Queen Ann's time in the early 1700s. Before that there was of course persecutions of people of various religious stripes, but not so systematically. Various wars and turmoil plus a plethora of unassimilated ethnicities made it possible, in the 17th century to shift your social and religious position a lot easier than it would be in the next century. In any case, most believe the illiteracy rate was much higher in Ireland. One would have to watch how the term is even defined by people reporting because children who could only read and speak Irish were not illiterate, though many English officials might have claimed they were. No one seemed too concerned with educational levels of Presbyterian children. They were more concerned with how many guns their fathers had. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cindy" <cacitoo@gmail.com> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 11:38:13 AM Subject: Re: [S-I] SCOTCH-IRISH DNA Made Simple (lmerle@com cast.net)Digest, Vol 6, Issue 308 Re: Linda Merle's message "3" below on DNA Made Simple Hi Linda, I learned another great tidbit from your message regarding people signing with 'X' in the old days. You mentioned the possibility that a person in Ireland could well have signed their name but rather than appear uppity the person would sign with an X. Hope I translated that tidbit in my brain correctly. lol I have a tiny bit of new info I learned last month at a DAR genealogy seminar in Whitney, TX. It surprised me very much. First, I will 'Bold & Italicise' only the section of your message that my new bit pertains to on why there can be several spellings of the same name in the same deed or will filed at the courthouse. 2nd, I will add my 'new bit learned' at the bottom of this message. On 12/13/2011 9:19 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re; Scotch-Irish Merchants in Colonial America (D H) > 2. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) > 3. Re: DNA Made Simple (lmerle@comcast.net) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------------------------ > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:19:27 +0000 (UTC) > From: lmerle@comcast.net > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: > <378540863.1101607.1323789567110.JavaMail.root@sz0165a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> > Hi John, ... It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). /*He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did.*/ Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. > For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the lea! di! > ng families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. > > > So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. > > Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania > *Cindy's New Bit Learned!!* Regarding your . /*He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. */Speaker Marcy ?? of Dallas area said that often the reason we find a variation of spellings on the same surname in a deed, will, etc. is that a courthouse clerk was transcribing and filing the document for the court. The clerk wanted to ensure that the document's surnames could be located thru a variety of spellings. I have a deed on a very dead end 1743 McIntire, Falmouth/Portland, Maine. We, me and several other 4th & 5th McIntire/McIntyre cousins originally from Maine, one from Dallas, TX , one from state of Washington, one from Australia) have reached a dead end on our Henry, Henery, Hanery, Henary, Hanary, etc. McIntire/McIntyre. No connections yet to the many McIntires of Maine & Massachusetts who have been illuminated in at least 3 McIntire, etc. books. I digress. The deed is below as a sample of the various spelllings of the 2 primary parties in a 1743 deed that I transcribed as best I could. Bk 2/P 478 Henry Mcintire of Falmouth Hannah Coy, John Coy's daughter of County Essex Massachusetts. (see photocopy of P.479 which has lots of detail - TYPED below) P. 479: by Benjamin Blackstone of the Town of Fa/mouth in the County of York Yeoman and Henry Mackentire of the Same Town Husbandman The Receipt whereof we do hereby acknowledge and our selves therewith fully consented satisfied and paid have therefore given granted bargained sold aliened ensconced conveyed and past over and do by these presents fully freely clearly and absolutely give grant bargain sell aliene ensconce convey and pass over unto them the P.? Benjamin Blackstone and Henry McEntire their heirs and assigns forever Sixty acres of Land lying in the Town of Fa/mouth aforesd at a Place called New Casco which Sixty Acres of Land is bounded as followeth beginning of the northerly corner of a lot of land laid out to Warren Drinkwater from thence running north 45 deg. East Sixty Rods to a stake from thence running north 45 deg West one hundred and sixty rods to a stake from thence running South 45 deg West Sixty rods to the land of Drinkwater and so by the land of Drinkwater to ye bounds first mentioned only allowing a convenient highway throught the same together with all the priviledges and appurtenances to the same now being or ever may be from thence arising ---- To Have and to hold all and singular the above granted premises free and clear from us the P.? Hannah Coy and Mary Gilbert our heirs Executors and Administrators unto them the said Blackstone and Mackentire their heirs Executors Administrators and assigns hereby giving unto them quiet and peaceable possession of all and Singular the above granted premises the which they their heirs and assigns shall and may from time to time and at all times forever hereafter have hold use occupy possess and enjoy to their entire use benefit and behoof forever and furthermore we the P.? Hannah Coy and Mary Gilbert for our selves our heirs Executors & Administrators do promise grant and covenant to and with the P.? Blackstone and McEntire their heirs and assigns in manner and form following that is to say untill the ensealing and delivery of these presents we are the true and lawful owners of the above granted land and have in ourselves good right full power and authority to make conveyance as is above expressed and furthermore that we will from time to time and at all times forever hereafter warrant and defend the P.? Blackstone and Mackentire their heirs and assigns in the quiet and peaceable possession of the same against all and every person laying any lawful claim unto the same or any part thereof and in witness and confirmation hereof we thoud Hannah Coy & Mary Gilbert have set to our hands & seals the 3d day of September in the 17th year of his majesty's reign anno domini 1743 --- Signed Sealed & Delivered in presence of Ezra? Sargent Junr Ignatius Sargent Hannah Coy Mary Gilbert Essex Co Glocester September 8th 1743 1743?? Recorded 2th Feb 1764 Cindy (McIntire) Johnson ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Donna, yes, I think changing your nationality got popular around the time of the Potato Famine. I've seen it too. Luckily we have excellent records in Scotland. If they don't turn up in some they were not in Scotland. If they weren't in England either, then they were most likely in Ireland. If they had been in Ireland and are now pretending to be Scots most likely they were in Ulster. Multiple migrations can complicate things: ie, Irish of whatever stripe who moved to Glasgow. If then moving to Australia or the USA, who knows what they'll say they were... Scots moving to Ireland -- same. It was hard to be consistent in the lies, so a through check of all the censuses and BMDs can sometimes uncover a crack in their cover story. In this day and age if no one can find them in Scotland in civil registration and censuses they got some explaining to do! My great grandmother was disinherited for marrying a Protestant Irishman (at least a second generation American) who was also a merchant. Of course her German relatives might have disinherited her if she married anything but a German Lutheran. His mother (from a line of Ulster Scots barracudas who owned 2000 acres near Pittsburgh after 1830) was disinherited for marrying a poor Irish Protestant whose da owned 4 acres till the Germans took it away from him. One thing we know about the Kellys: they were handsome men who attracted rich men's daughters. And it's hard to pretend you're not Irish when your surname is Kelly. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donnalangbank" <donnalangbank@aol.com> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Cc: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 11:25:41 AM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple Fascinating as ever, Linda! Re your mothers comment - my husbands family changed nationality on the boat! They were Ulster Scots from Donegal, moving to join other family in Scotland in 1911 ie around partition. When they went from Scotland to the USA they put their nationality as Scottish on the ships manifest - as Ulster Scots they did not want to be associated with the Southern Irish. Apparently this was quite common but they did still list religion as Presbyterian - and very strict at that ! Donna Sent from my iPhone On 13 Dec 2011, at 16:06, lmerle@comcast.net wrote: > Hi Donna, you reminded me of a horror story I heard about someone tracing an ancestor back to a parish in Ireland. However after a generation or so the name was not in the parish records. Apparently he did some research and learned that, as sometimes happens, everyone in the area ended up with the same last name. So a number of them chose new ones one day. > > I was helping a guy get Irish citizenship a little while ago. Easy, right? His grandparents left Ireland. He had marriage in the USA of the grandparents that gave the names of their parents and the counties of origin. However there was no sign of grandpa in his county. You can get access to the indexes, etc, of the Irish civil registration free at www.familysearch.org . No sign of grandpa anywhere. So apparently grandpa didn't exist. However grandma did. I was able to find her birth record and establish that no one with her name was married or died in Ireland. So he did become a citizen. Grandpa still is on the lam. Some one was looking for grandpa. The surname he chose to use is found in his county and is uncommon, so I expect he adapted another family name, maybe his mother's maiden name. He could have so easily become "John Murphy" but he didn't. He's not the only fellow whose ancestors changed their surname on arrival. > > And as my late mother used to say "Many people changed their religion on the boat." Don't know how she figured that one out <grin>. > > Linda Merle > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Donnalangbank" <donnalangbank@aol.com> > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 10:37:48 AM > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > > Interesting as always Linda. We couldn't find my husbands grandfathers birth in Londonderry nor the previous two siblings anywhere but had the none elder ones from Presbyterian Church records Donegal no problem as Irwin. The last three children were born elsewhere and even in 1890 to 1896 were written down as Irvine. > This triggered a memory in one of the older members of the family - apparently this caused untold issues with an emigration to America in 1924 because his birth certificate had a different surname to that he used ie Irwin like the rest of the family! > > So yes, we also learnt always check variants - I had to pay an Irish genealogist to learn my lesson!! > > Regards > Donna > > Sent from my iPhone > > On 13 Dec 2011, at 15:19, lmerle@comcast.net wrote: > >> Hi John, unfortunately your logic (that you and your father, etc) always spelled the name the same, makes a couple assumptions that cannot be proven. >> >> They are: >> -- that the past was just like the present. In other words that spelling mattered. Actually our English and Scots ancestors were a bit behind other parts of Europe, like the future German speaking countries. They had standardized spelling a lot earlier than English. If you go back three hundred years you will find many many variant spellings in published materials by highly educated people. That is because spelling was phonetic. One spelled a word as one heard it. Though sometimes people spelled it many different ways, maybe to be creative? Who knows? >> >> -- In the past people didn't go to school so they couldn't spell right or wrong. Granted, illiteracy rates in England, which are better documented than in other British countries, have been low for the last 300 or so years. I am recalling what Michael Gandy (a leading British genealogist) said in a lecture, in which he gave actual statistics. However most people attended until early teen years, at most, and then rarely used it. They didn't read newspapers. In fact many times they signed baptisms and marriage records with an X because to actually write your name was very uppity and it could have cost them to step out of rank. So many times signing your name with an X does not indicate illiteracy, at least in the UK. In 1830 in the hills of Tennessee -- now that's another matter entirely. >> >> -- If the ancestor was of a class where writing names was permitted, and always if he were not, often a clerk wrote the name down. This was a clerk who lacked the concept of standardized spelling of any words. Before that, a scribe. If you check the parish records, you will see that they were written by one person for some length of time -- a clerk or even the minister. The ancestor did NOT sign his name, such as one would do today. The clerk wrote it down. If the clerk or minister certainly didn't ask a commoner how to spell his name. First of all the working man was ignorant and probably had no idea how to do that, in the clerk's opinion. The clerk had several ways of spelling the name and just did it. It would certainly have been very very unBritish for a literate, middle class clerk to ask a working man how to spell his name. It would certainly be unheard of for a farmer or carpenter, etc, to correct a clerk's spelling. Whether this worked for merchants and above, I do not know. I guess I'll have to ask Michael Gandy, who researched this. >> >> ---The clerk wrote the name down phonetically as he heard it. Now there used to be many, many many local accents in the UK. These are now disappearing due to mass media, however even today, most of the rest of us cannot understand a Geordie and people in Belfast find the native of Ballymena incomprehensible. It is very possible for a clerk or taxman from even twenty miles away to hear a surname, pronounced in a local accent, 'differently' and to transcribe it differently than a local man would. >> >> So if you think your ancestors could either always read and write, were always permitted to give their opinion to the clerk of the parish and the king's men collecting taxes, etc, or that their pronunciation of their name was always correctly heard and correctly written down by all clerks, etc, whose records survive -- well then, I have a great bridge in Brooklyn that you might want to purchase cheap. >> >> Another wrinkle is that we do not know the local patois. We speak English, not Scots. Many Scots records were recorded in Scots. The earlier ones in Latin. One can find some very strange spellings when Scots or English names are written in Latin. >> >> -- I had another reason but have now forgotten it, like a standup comic with a list (Number 3: There is no number 3....). >> >> I've seen Hume as Home and I have definitely seen it as Hulme. The addition of an L simply indicates a minor difference in pronunciation, probably an Englishism. Earlier Scots records often spelled names like Simpson as Simson, indicating that the pronunciation didn't include an aspiration at the end of the first syllable. A little puff of air. The English love these things. They began creeping into lowland Scots records in the early 1800s -- at least in eastern Stirling. >> >> As family researchers, we usually do not study much. This works out okay -- it leaves work for our descendants to do, and since we aren't doing brain surgery though ill-prepared to do so, no one dies. Yet if we do 'git ejikated', one of the first things the teacher tries to pound into our thick skulls is that the first, the most common reason why we fail to bag our man is our failure to research surname variants. It look a few classes, many errors and backtracking, for me to learn this. My skull is pretty thick! However, duh, finally I realized it is generally true and I had to remember this. >> >> So I always do a number of things to seek out surname spelling variants when I start to research a name. Checking IGI is one. Another is looking the surname up in a good surname dictionary. Until the day comes when I've researched and published a few surname books myself, I have got to assume that the guys who wrote these books knew a tiny bit more than me. So maybe I should listen to them. I try hard to remember this <grin>. Where the screwups happen is the cases where I'm sure I know what the variants are or that there were none. That's when I screw up. >> >> I think the key to determining whether two names identified two different sets of people or the same ones is locale. Obviously, two spelling variants are more easily identified if suddenly the one variant is not present when the other is. Foreman, who wrote on "Old Mother" Cumberland, PA, the mother county for many of us, was confused over McCamey and McCamish, for example. However when I did a very careful study of the two, using records he probably couldn't so easily get, it was clear the McCameys were in Londonderry and the McCamish surname in Hamilton Twp. But it took some research to figure that out and a number of tables in Word. >> >> It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. >> >> For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the leading families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. >> >> However probably the spelling represented how the clerk heard the name and so was phonetic. >> >> The other thing to remember is the vowels change fastest both in time and locale. So it's H*me, alas. You can put any vowel in there and it worked for someone. >> >> I have found names that do not tend to vary in spelling in old records. However that doesn't include my maiden name of Mayson, oops, Mazon, oops, Meeson, oops Mason (through 20 variants in Durham records). Which I found a little unbelievable <grin>. >> >> Reading Scots parish records, I did answer a nagging question: what's the difference between a Fish and a Fisher in Scots records? One parish clerk had kindly written: Fish (Fitch) for me. I believe the Fitch is an Englishism. You see a lot of things like this in the parish records that can clarify surname changes that we'd never think of, today, just because I do not live in an area where Scots is competing with English. And so I learned a Fish was not a Fisher who got circumcized. He was a different animal entirely. >> >> So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. >> >> Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "john.hume" <john.hume@ntlworld.com> >> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com >> Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 5:05:35 AM >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> >> Many thanks Bill for your information. >> This is one of the sticking points about surnames. As a HUME, I become very >> 'cross' when people insist in putting an 'L' in the middle. Why HULME, as >> far as I am concerned there is absolutely no connection. HULME is part of >> Lancashire, Manchester etc, whereas HUME is Scottish, and of course spelt >> HOME as well. Again in Scotland if you mention HUME or HOME they know >> exactly how to spell it HUME. >> >> As with my cousin, TWEEDDALE is a family name and has never been spelt as >> TWEEDALE, it's double U, double E and double T, any other variation is not >> allowed. Although I do accept the spelling mistake in the 1881 census, it >> may have been down to enumerator's interpretation. This is the only example >> I can find of this error. However, has he has only two daughters, his branch >> of this very small family group will now cease. >> >> Now I know it sounds silly for me to not except any of the variations of my >> name, but when ever I am asked my name, I ALWAYS end it by spelling H.U.M.E. >> out to the person. My father did the same. So is it a family trait that >> unknowingly we have carried on?. When I started 25 years ago, I was able to >> research my direct family, using just the IGI, straight back to 1720, this >> took about three hours in total. I am then amazed at the difficultly that >> 'famous/infamous' people seem to have problems even going back to the mid >> 19th century. Maybe it was all due to the fact that my ancestors could read >> and write, thereby ensuring the surname was spelt correctly, obviously I >> don't know. >> >> Regarding the message about DNA in Ireland. I was in Belfast and Londonderry >> from 1965 -67. I was serving in the Royal Navy and had some splendid 'runs >> ashore' in both places, even got invited by a total stranger to a 21st >> birthday bash in Carrickfergus, frightens the life out of me now just to >> think about what may have happened. If I had known more about my Irish >> connections at that time I may have spent more of my time there more >> fruitfully. Now I'm thinking of going over next year, but obviously now >> having to pay for the privilege. It is a great shame that religion still >> plays a bit part over there. To me, it doesn't matter which religion you >> are, it is how you behave. I have some excellent friends who are Muslims, I >> treat them as they are my own brothers. By knowing them I understand their >> own divides in their religion, if you think Ireland has it's problems, try >> understanding the Muslims. >> >> As to having your DNA taken, I had mine done for one simple reason, I wish >> to know if there are any other members of my own particular branch of the >> HUMES out there. Paperwork becomes scarce before 1700, thereby, spending a >> £100 on such an easy test, is very good value compared to spending money on >> researching something which probably isn't even there. Also, once you >> receive your DNA markers, you are updated everytime a connection is made >> with your own DNA at all 4 points of markers. >> >> Well,I must be off, playing Santa again today. Only managed to upset five >> children yesterday, must do better today. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Bill Limebeer" <limebeer@SENTEX.CA> >> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 7:52 PM >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> >> >>> On 12/12/2011 1:27 PM, john.hume wrote: >>> Hi John, >>> you maybe interested to know that there are Tweedales living in the >>> Province of New Brunswick Canada, One of whom I knew some years ago was >>> a Judge at Burton New Brunswick >>> Cheers >>> Bill >>> On.Can. >>>> Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. >>>> >>>> I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is >>>> difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the >>>> Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents >>>> must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets >>>> incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't >>>> understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It >>>> was >>>> entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course >>>> John >>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "S. B. Mason"<sbmasonaz@cox.net> >>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM >>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>> >>>> >>>>> John, >>>>> >>>>> I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My >>>>> husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British >>>>> programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people >>>>> speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and >>>>> Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my >>>>> third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being >>>>> said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd >>>>> usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even >>>>> when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So >>>>> he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat >>>>> it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about >>>>> embarrassing! >>>>> >>>>> Sara >>>>> >>>>> On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Today's Topics: >>>>>> >>>>>> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >>>>>> Message: 1 >>>>>> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >>>>>> From: "john.hume"<john.hume@ntlworld.com> >>>>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>>>> Message-ID:<8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >>>>>> reply-type=original >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Linda, >>>>>> >>>>>> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >>>>>> have >>>>>> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >>>>>> Eve, he was >>>>>> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >>>>>> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >>>>>> long. >>>>>> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >>>>>> the hedge, >>>>>> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >>>>>> Result over >>>>>> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >>>>>> now I've >>>>>> taken out pet insurance. >>>>>> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >>>>>> BBC there >>>>>> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >>>>>> channels and no >>>>>> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >>>>>> people >>>>>> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >>>>>> Mark >>>>>> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >>>>>> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >>>>>> Ireland, a >>>>>> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >>>>>> she and >>>>>> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >>>>>> and >>>>>> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >>>>>> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >>>>>> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >>>>>> >>>>>> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >>>>>> family >>>>>> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >>>>>> keep >>>>>> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >>>>>> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >>>>>> event >>>>>> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >>>>>> mind >>>>>> ready to publish details when they become available >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for your time >>>>>> regards >>>>>> John Hume >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>>>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>>>> the >>>>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>>> >>>> ------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Fascinating as ever, Linda! Re your mothers comment - my husbands family changed nationality on the boat! They were Ulster Scots from Donegal, moving to join other family in Scotland in 1911 ie around partition. When they went from Scotland to the USA they put their nationality as Scottish on the ships manifest - as Ulster Scots they did not want to be associated with the Southern Irish. Apparently this was quite common but they did still list religion as Presbyterian - and very strict at that ! Donna Sent from my iPhone On 13 Dec 2011, at 16:06, lmerle@comcast.net wrote: > Hi Donna, you reminded me of a horror story I heard about someone tracing an ancestor back to a parish in Ireland. However after a generation or so the name was not in the parish records. Apparently he did some research and learned that, as sometimes happens, everyone in the area ended up with the same last name. So a number of them chose new ones one day. > > I was helping a guy get Irish citizenship a little while ago. Easy, right? His grandparents left Ireland. He had marriage in the USA of the grandparents that gave the names of their parents and the counties of origin. However there was no sign of grandpa in his county. You can get access to the indexes, etc, of the Irish civil registration free at www.familysearch.org . No sign of grandpa anywhere. So apparently grandpa didn't exist. However grandma did. I was able to find her birth record and establish that no one with her name was married or died in Ireland. So he did become a citizen. Grandpa still is on the lam. Some one was looking for grandpa. The surname he chose to use is found in his county and is uncommon, so I expect he adapted another family name, maybe his mother's maiden name. He could have so easily become "John Murphy" but he didn't. He's not the only fellow whose ancestors changed their surname on arrival. > > And as my late mother used to say "Many people changed their religion on the boat." Don't know how she figured that one out <grin>. > > Linda Merle > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Donnalangbank" <donnalangbank@aol.com> > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 10:37:48 AM > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > > Interesting as always Linda. We couldn't find my husbands grandfathers birth in Londonderry nor the previous two siblings anywhere but had the none elder ones from Presbyterian Church records Donegal no problem as Irwin. The last three children were born elsewhere and even in 1890 to 1896 were written down as Irvine. > This triggered a memory in one of the older members of the family - apparently this caused untold issues with an emigration to America in 1924 because his birth certificate had a different surname to that he used ie Irwin like the rest of the family! > > So yes, we also learnt always check variants - I had to pay an Irish genealogist to learn my lesson!! > > Regards > Donna > > Sent from my iPhone > > On 13 Dec 2011, at 15:19, lmerle@comcast.net wrote: > >> Hi John, unfortunately your logic (that you and your father, etc) always spelled the name the same, makes a couple assumptions that cannot be proven. >> >> They are: >> -- that the past was just like the present. In other words that spelling mattered. Actually our English and Scots ancestors were a bit behind other parts of Europe, like the future German speaking countries. They had standardized spelling a lot earlier than English. If you go back three hundred years you will find many many variant spellings in published materials by highly educated people. That is because spelling was phonetic. One spelled a word as one heard it. Though sometimes people spelled it many different ways, maybe to be creative? Who knows? >> >> -- In the past people didn't go to school so they couldn't spell right or wrong. Granted, illiteracy rates in England, which are better documented than in other British countries, have been low for the last 300 or so years. I am recalling what Michael Gandy (a leading British genealogist) said in a lecture, in which he gave actual statistics. However most people attended until early teen years, at most, and then rarely used it. They didn't read newspapers. In fact many times they signed baptisms and marriage records with an X because to actually write your name was very uppity and it could have cost them to step out of rank. So many times signing your name with an X does not indicate illiteracy, at least in the UK. In 1830 in the hills of Tennessee -- now that's another matter entirely. >> >> -- If the ancestor was of a class where writing names was permitted, and always if he were not, often a clerk wrote the name down. This was a clerk who lacked the concept of standardized spelling of any words. Before that, a scribe. If you check the parish records, you will see that they were written by one person for some length of time -- a clerk or even the minister. The ancestor did NOT sign his name, such as one would do today. The clerk wrote it down. If the clerk or minister certainly didn't ask a commoner how to spell his name. First of all the working man was ignorant and probably had no idea how to do that, in the clerk's opinion. The clerk had several ways of spelling the name and just did it. It would certainly have been very very unBritish for a literate, middle class clerk to ask a working man how to spell his name. It would certainly be unheard of for a farmer or carpenter, etc, to correct a clerk's spelling. Whether this worked for merchants and above, I d! o not know. I guess I'll have to ask Michael Gandy, who researched this. >> >> ---The clerk wrote the name down phonetically as he heard it. Now there used to be many, many many local accents in the UK. These are now disappearing due to mass media, however even today, most of the rest of us cannot understand a Geordie and people in Belfast find the native of Ballymena incomprehensible. It is very possible for a clerk or taxman from even twenty miles away to hear a surname, pronounced in a local accent, 'differently' and to transcribe it differently than a local man would. >> >> So if you think your ancestors could either always read and write, were always permitted to give their opinion to the clerk of the parish and the king's men collecting taxes, etc, or that their pronunciation of their name was always correctly heard and correctly written down by all clerks, etc, whose records survive -- well then, I have a great bridge in Brooklyn that you might want to purchase cheap. >> >> Another wrinkle is that we do not know the local patois. We speak English, not Scots. Many Scots records were recorded in Scots. The earlier ones in Latin. One can find some very strange spellings when Scots or English names are written in Latin. >> >> -- I had another reason but have now forgotten it, like a standup comic with a list (Number 3: There is no number 3....). >> >> I've seen Hume as Home and I have definitely seen it as Hulme. The addition of an L simply indicates a minor difference in pronunciation, probably an Englishism. Earlier Scots records often spelled names like Simpson as Simson, indicating that the pronunciation didn't include an aspiration at the end of the first syllable. A little puff of air. The English love these things. They began creeping into lowland Scots records in the early 1800s -- at least in eastern Stirling. >> >> As family researchers, we usually do not study much. This works out okay -- it leaves work for our descendants to do, and since we aren't doing brain surgery though ill-prepared to do so, no one dies. Yet if we do 'git ejikated', one of the first things the teacher tries to pound into our thick skulls is that the first, the most common reason why we fail to bag our man is our failure to research surname variants. It look a few classes, many errors and backtracking, for me to learn this. My skull is pretty thick! However, duh, finally I realized it is generally true and I had to remember this. >> >> So I always do a number of things to seek out surname spelling variants when I start to research a name. Checking IGI is one. Another is looking the surname up in a good surname dictionary. Until the day comes when I've researched and published a few surname books myself, I have got to assume that the guys who wrote these books knew a tiny bit more than me. So maybe I should listen to them. I try hard to remember this <grin>. Where the screwups happen is the cases where I'm sure I know what the variants are or that there were none. That's when I screw up. >> >> I think the key to determining whether two names identified two different sets of people or the same ones is locale. Obviously, two spelling variants are more easily identified if suddenly the one variant is not present when the other is. Foreman, who wrote on "Old Mother" Cumberland, PA, the mother county for many of us, was confused over McCamey and McCamish, for example. However when I did a very careful study of the two, using records he probably couldn't so easily get, it was clear the McCameys were in Londonderry and the McCamish surname in Hamilton Twp. But it took some research to figure that out and a number of tables in Word. >> >> It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. >> >> For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the le! ading families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. >> >> However probably the spelling represented how the clerk heard the name and so was phonetic. >> >> The other thing to remember is the vowels change fastest both in time and locale. So it's H*me, alas. You can put any vowel in there and it worked for someone. >> >> I have found names that do not tend to vary in spelling in old records. However that doesn't include my maiden name of Mayson, oops, Mazon, oops, Meeson, oops Mason (through 20 variants in Durham records). Which I found a little unbelievable <grin>. >> >> Reading Scots parish records, I did answer a nagging question: what's the difference between a Fish and a Fisher in Scots records? One parish clerk had kindly written: Fish (Fitch) for me. I believe the Fitch is an Englishism. You see a lot of things like this in the parish records that can clarify surname changes that we'd never think of, today, just because I do not live in an area where Scots is competing with English. And so I learned a Fish was not a Fisher who got circumcized. He was a different animal entirely. >> >> So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. >> >> Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "john.hume" <john.hume@ntlworld.com> >> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com >> Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 5:05:35 AM >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> >> Many thanks Bill for your information. >> This is one of the sticking points about surnames. As a HUME, I become very >> 'cross' when people insist in putting an 'L' in the middle. Why HULME, as >> far as I am concerned there is absolutely no connection. HULME is part of >> Lancashire, Manchester etc, whereas HUME is Scottish, and of course spelt >> HOME as well. Again in Scotland if you mention HUME or HOME they know >> exactly how to spell it HUME. >> >> As with my cousin, TWEEDDALE is a family name and has never been spelt as >> TWEEDALE, it's double U, double E and double T, any other variation is not >> allowed. Although I do accept the spelling mistake in the 1881 census, it >> may have been down to enumerator's interpretation. This is the only example >> I can find of this error. However, has he has only two daughters, his branch >> of this very small family group will now cease. >> >> Now I know it sounds silly for me to not except any of the variations of my >> name, but when ever I am asked my name, I ALWAYS end it by spelling H.U.M.E. >> out to the person. My father did the same. So is it a family trait that >> unknowingly we have carried on?. When I started 25 years ago, I was able to >> research my direct family, using just the IGI, straight back to 1720, this >> took about three hours in total. I am then amazed at the difficultly that >> 'famous/infamous' people seem to have problems even going back to the mid >> 19th century. Maybe it was all due to the fact that my ancestors could read >> and write, thereby ensuring the surname was spelt correctly, obviously I >> don't know. >> >> Regarding the message about DNA in Ireland. I was in Belfast and Londonderry >> from 1965 -67. I was serving in the Royal Navy and had some splendid 'runs >> ashore' in both places, even got invited by a total stranger to a 21st >> birthday bash in Carrickfergus, frightens the life out of me now just to >> think about what may have happened. If I had known more about my Irish >> connections at that time I may have spent more of my time there more >> fruitfully. Now I'm thinking of going over next year, but obviously now >> having to pay for the privilege. It is a great shame that religion still >> plays a bit part over there. To me, it doesn't matter which religion you >> are, it is how you behave. I have some excellent friends who are Muslims, I >> treat them as they are my own brothers. By knowing them I understand their >> own divides in their religion, if you think Ireland has it's problems, try >> understanding the Muslims. >> >> As to having your DNA taken, I had mine done for one simple reason, I wish >> to know if there are any other members of my own particular branch of the >> HUMES out there. Paperwork becomes scarce before 1700, thereby, spending a >> £100 on such an easy test, is very good value compared to spending money on >> researching something which probably isn't even there. Also, once you >> receive your DNA markers, you are updated everytime a connection is made >> with your own DNA at all 4 points of markers. >> >> Well,I must be off, playing Santa again today. Only managed to upset five >> children yesterday, must do better today. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Bill Limebeer" <limebeer@SENTEX.CA> >> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 7:52 PM >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> >> >>> On 12/12/2011 1:27 PM, john.hume wrote: >>> Hi John, >>> you maybe interested to know that there are Tweedales living in the >>> Province of New Brunswick Canada, One of whom I knew some years ago was >>> a Judge at Burton New Brunswick >>> Cheers >>> Bill >>> On.Can. >>>> Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. >>>> >>>> I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is >>>> difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the >>>> Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents >>>> must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets >>>> incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't >>>> understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It >>>> was >>>> entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course >>>> John >>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "S. B. Mason"<sbmasonaz@cox.net> >>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM >>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>> >>>> >>>>> John, >>>>> >>>>> I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My >>>>> husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British >>>>> programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people >>>>> speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and >>>>> Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my >>>>> third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being >>>>> said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd >>>>> usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even >>>>> when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So >>>>> he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat >>>>> it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about >>>>> embarrassing! >>>>> >>>>> Sara >>>>> >>>>> On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Today's Topics: >>>>>> >>>>>> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>> >>>>>> Message: 1 >>>>>> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >>>>>> From: "john.hume"<john.hume@ntlworld.com> >>>>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>>>> Message-ID:<8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >>>>>> reply-type=original >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Linda, >>>>>> >>>>>> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >>>>>> have >>>>>> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >>>>>> Eve, he was >>>>>> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >>>>>> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >>>>>> long. >>>>>> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >>>>>> the hedge, >>>>>> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >>>>>> Result over >>>>>> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >>>>>> now I've >>>>>> taken out pet insurance. >>>>>> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >>>>>> BBC there >>>>>> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >>>>>> channels and no >>>>>> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >>>>>> people >>>>>> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >>>>>> Mark >>>>>> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >>>>>> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >>>>>> Ireland, a >>>>>> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >>>>>> she and >>>>>> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >>>>>> and >>>>>> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >>>>>> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >>>>>> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >>>>>> >>>>>> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >>>>>> family >>>>>> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >>>>>> keep >>>>>> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >>>>>> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >>>>>> event >>>>>> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >>>>>> mind >>>>>> ready to publish details when they become available >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for your time >>>>>> regards >>>>>> John Hume >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------- >>>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>>>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>>>> the >>>>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>>> >>>> ------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Donna, you reminded me of a horror story I heard about someone tracing an ancestor back to a parish in Ireland. However after a generation or so the name was not in the parish records. Apparently he did some research and learned that, as sometimes happens, everyone in the area ended up with the same last name. So a number of them chose new ones one day. I was helping a guy get Irish citizenship a little while ago. Easy, right? His grandparents left Ireland. He had marriage in the USA of the grandparents that gave the names of their parents and the counties of origin. However there was no sign of grandpa in his county. You can get access to the indexes, etc, of the Irish civil registration free at www.familysearch.org . No sign of grandpa anywhere. So apparently grandpa didn't exist. However grandma did. I was able to find her birth record and establish that no one with her name was married or died in Ireland. So he did become a citizen. Grandpa still is on the lam. Some one was looking for grandpa. The surname he chose to use is found in his county and is uncommon, so I expect he adapted another family name, maybe his mother's maiden name. He could have so easily become "John Murphy" but he didn't. He's not the only fellow whose ancestors changed their surname on arrival. And as my late mother used to say "Many people changed their religion on the boat." Don't know how she figured that one out <grin>. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donnalangbank" <donnalangbank@aol.com> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 10:37:48 AM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple Interesting as always Linda. We couldn't find my husbands grandfathers birth in Londonderry nor the previous two siblings anywhere but had the none elder ones from Presbyterian Church records Donegal no problem as Irwin. The last three children were born elsewhere and even in 1890 to 1896 were written down as Irvine. This triggered a memory in one of the older members of the family - apparently this caused untold issues with an emigration to America in 1924 because his birth certificate had a different surname to that he used ie Irwin like the rest of the family! So yes, we also learnt always check variants - I had to pay an Irish genealogist to learn my lesson!! Regards Donna Sent from my iPhone On 13 Dec 2011, at 15:19, lmerle@comcast.net wrote: > Hi John, unfortunately your logic (that you and your father, etc) always spelled the name the same, makes a couple assumptions that cannot be proven. > > They are: > -- that the past was just like the present. In other words that spelling mattered. Actually our English and Scots ancestors were a bit behind other parts of Europe, like the future German speaking countries. They had standardized spelling a lot earlier than English. If you go back three hundred years you will find many many variant spellings in published materials by highly educated people. That is because spelling was phonetic. One spelled a word as one heard it. Though sometimes people spelled it many different ways, maybe to be creative? Who knows? > > -- In the past people didn't go to school so they couldn't spell right or wrong. Granted, illiteracy rates in England, which are better documented than in other British countries, have been low for the last 300 or so years. I am recalling what Michael Gandy (a leading British genealogist) said in a lecture, in which he gave actual statistics. However most people attended until early teen years, at most, and then rarely used it. They didn't read newspapers. In fact many times they signed baptisms and marriage records with an X because to actually write your name was very uppity and it could have cost them to step out of rank. So many times signing your name with an X does not indicate illiteracy, at least in the UK. In 1830 in the hills of Tennessee -- now that's another matter entirely. > > -- If the ancestor was of a class where writing names was permitted, and always if he were not, often a clerk wrote the name down. This was a clerk who lacked the concept of standardized spelling of any words. Before that, a scribe. If you check the parish records, you will see that they were written by one person for some length of time -- a clerk or even the minister. The ancestor did NOT sign his name, such as one would do today. The clerk wrote it down. If the clerk or minister certainly didn't ask a commoner how to spell his name. First of all the working man was ignorant and probably had no idea how to do that, in the clerk's opinion. The clerk had several ways of spelling the name and just did it. It would certainly have been very very unBritish for a literate, middle class clerk to ask a working man how to spell his name. It would certainly be unheard of for a farmer or carpenter, etc, to correct a clerk's spelling. Whether this worked for merchants and above, I do not know. I guess I'll have to ask Michael Gandy, who researched this. > > ---The clerk wrote the name down phonetically as he heard it. Now there used to be many, many many local accents in the UK. These are now disappearing due to mass media, however even today, most of the rest of us cannot understand a Geordie and people in Belfast find the native of Ballymena incomprehensible. It is very possible for a clerk or taxman from even twenty miles away to hear a surname, pronounced in a local accent, 'differently' and to transcribe it differently than a local man would. > > So if you think your ancestors could either always read and write, were always permitted to give their opinion to the clerk of the parish and the king's men collecting taxes, etc, or that their pronunciation of their name was always correctly heard and correctly written down by all clerks, etc, whose records survive -- well then, I have a great bridge in Brooklyn that you might want to purchase cheap. > > Another wrinkle is that we do not know the local patois. We speak English, not Scots. Many Scots records were recorded in Scots. The earlier ones in Latin. One can find some very strange spellings when Scots or English names are written in Latin. > > -- I had another reason but have now forgotten it, like a standup comic with a list (Number 3: There is no number 3....). > > I've seen Hume as Home and I have definitely seen it as Hulme. The addition of an L simply indicates a minor difference in pronunciation, probably an Englishism. Earlier Scots records often spelled names like Simpson as Simson, indicating that the pronunciation didn't include an aspiration at the end of the first syllable. A little puff of air. The English love these things. They began creeping into lowland Scots records in the early 1800s -- at least in eastern Stirling. > > As family researchers, we usually do not study much. This works out okay -- it leaves work for our descendants to do, and since we aren't doing brain surgery though ill-prepared to do so, no one dies. Yet if we do 'git ejikated', one of the first things the teacher tries to pound into our thick skulls is that the first, the most common reason why we fail to bag our man is our failure to research surname variants. It look a few classes, many errors and backtracking, for me to learn this. My skull is pretty thick! However, duh, finally I realized it is generally true and I had to remember this. > > So I always do a number of things to seek out surname spelling variants when I start to research a name. Checking IGI is one. Another is looking the surname up in a good surname dictionary. Until the day comes when I've researched and published a few surname books myself, I have got to assume that the guys who wrote these books knew a tiny bit more than me. So maybe I should listen to them. I try hard to remember this <grin>. Where the screwups happen is the cases where I'm sure I know what the variants are or that there were none. That's when I screw up. > > I think the key to determining whether two names identified two different sets of people or the same ones is locale. Obviously, two spelling variants are more easily identified if suddenly the one variant is not present when the other is. Foreman, who wrote on "Old Mother" Cumberland, PA, the mother county for many of us, was confused over McCamey and McCamish, for example. However when I did a very careful study of the two, using records he probably couldn't so easily get, it was clear the McCameys were in Londonderry and the McCamish surname in Hamilton Twp. But it took some research to figure that out and a number of tables in Word. > > It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. > > For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the leading families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. > > However probably the spelling represented how the clerk heard the name and so was phonetic. > > The other thing to remember is the vowels change fastest both in time and locale. So it's H*me, alas. You can put any vowel in there and it worked for someone. > > I have found names that do not tend to vary in spelling in old records. However that doesn't include my maiden name of Mayson, oops, Mazon, oops, Meeson, oops Mason (through 20 variants in Durham records). Which I found a little unbelievable <grin>. > > Reading Scots parish records, I did answer a nagging question: what's the difference between a Fish and a Fisher in Scots records? One parish clerk had kindly written: Fish (Fitch) for me. I believe the Fitch is an Englishism. You see a lot of things like this in the parish records that can clarify surname changes that we'd never think of, today, just because I do not live in an area where Scots is competing with English. And so I learned a Fish was not a Fisher who got circumcized. He was a different animal entirely. > > So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. > > Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "john.hume" <john.hume@ntlworld.com> > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 5:05:35 AM > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > > Many thanks Bill for your information. > This is one of the sticking points about surnames. As a HUME, I become very > 'cross' when people insist in putting an 'L' in the middle. Why HULME, as > far as I am concerned there is absolutely no connection. HULME is part of > Lancashire, Manchester etc, whereas HUME is Scottish, and of course spelt > HOME as well. Again in Scotland if you mention HUME or HOME they know > exactly how to spell it HUME. > > As with my cousin, TWEEDDALE is a family name and has never been spelt as > TWEEDALE, it's double U, double E and double T, any other variation is not > allowed. Although I do accept the spelling mistake in the 1881 census, it > may have been down to enumerator's interpretation. This is the only example > I can find of this error. However, has he has only two daughters, his branch > of this very small family group will now cease. > > Now I know it sounds silly for me to not except any of the variations of my > name, but when ever I am asked my name, I ALWAYS end it by spelling H.U.M.E. > out to the person. My father did the same. So is it a family trait that > unknowingly we have carried on?. When I started 25 years ago, I was able to > research my direct family, using just the IGI, straight back to 1720, this > took about three hours in total. I am then amazed at the difficultly that > 'famous/infamous' people seem to have problems even going back to the mid > 19th century. Maybe it was all due to the fact that my ancestors could read > and write, thereby ensuring the surname was spelt correctly, obviously I > don't know. > > Regarding the message about DNA in Ireland. I was in Belfast and Londonderry > from 1965 -67. I was serving in the Royal Navy and had some splendid 'runs > ashore' in both places, even got invited by a total stranger to a 21st > birthday bash in Carrickfergus, frightens the life out of me now just to > think about what may have happened. If I had known more about my Irish > connections at that time I may have spent more of my time there more > fruitfully. Now I'm thinking of going over next year, but obviously now > having to pay for the privilege. It is a great shame that religion still > plays a bit part over there. To me, it doesn't matter which religion you > are, it is how you behave. I have some excellent friends who are Muslims, I > treat them as they are my own brothers. By knowing them I understand their > own divides in their religion, if you think Ireland has it's problems, try > understanding the Muslims. > > As to having your DNA taken, I had mine done for one simple reason, I wish > to know if there are any other members of my own particular branch of the > HUMES out there. Paperwork becomes scarce before 1700, thereby, spending a > £100 on such an easy test, is very good value compared to spending money on > researching something which probably isn't even there. Also, once you > receive your DNA markers, you are updated everytime a connection is made > with your own DNA at all 4 points of markers. > > Well,I must be off, playing Santa again today. Only managed to upset five > children yesterday, must do better today. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bill Limebeer" <limebeer@SENTEX.CA> > To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 7:52 PM > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > > >> On 12/12/2011 1:27 PM, john.hume wrote: >> Hi John, >> you maybe interested to know that there are Tweedales living in the >> Province of New Brunswick Canada, One of whom I knew some years ago was >> a Judge at Burton New Brunswick >> Cheers >> Bill >> On.Can. >>> Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. >>> >>> I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is >>> difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the >>> Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents >>> must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets >>> incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't >>> understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It >>> was >>> entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course >>> John >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "S. B. Mason"<sbmasonaz@cox.net> >>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM >>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>> >>> >>>> John, >>>> >>>> I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My >>>> husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British >>>> programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people >>>> speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and >>>> Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my >>>> third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being >>>> said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd >>>> usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even >>>> when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So >>>> he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat >>>> it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about >>>> embarrassing! >>>> >>>> Sara >>>> >>>> On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Today's Topics: >>>>> >>>>> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> Message: 1 >>>>> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >>>>> From: "john.hume"<john.hume@ntlworld.com> >>>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>>> Message-ID:<8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >>>>> reply-type=original >>>>> >>>>> Hi Linda, >>>>> >>>>> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >>>>> have >>>>> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >>>>> Eve, he was >>>>> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >>>>> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >>>>> long. >>>>> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >>>>> the hedge, >>>>> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >>>>> Result over >>>>> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >>>>> now I've >>>>> taken out pet insurance. >>>>> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >>>>> BBC there >>>>> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >>>>> channels and no >>>>> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >>>>> people >>>>> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >>>>> Mark >>>>> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >>>>> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >>>>> Ireland, a >>>>> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >>>>> she and >>>>> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >>>>> and >>>>> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >>>>> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >>>>> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >>>>> >>>>> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >>>>> family >>>>> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >>>>> keep >>>>> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >>>>> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >>>>> event >>>>> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >>>>> mind >>>>> ready to publish details when they become available >>>>> >>>>> Thanks for your time >>>>> regards >>>>> John Hume >>>> >>>> ------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>>> the >>>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Interesting as always Linda. We couldn't find my husbands grandfathers birth in Londonderry nor the previous two siblings anywhere but had the none elder ones from Presbyterian Church records Donegal no problem as Irwin. The last three children were born elsewhere and even in 1890 to 1896 were written down as Irvine. This triggered a memory in one of the older members of the family - apparently this caused untold issues with an emigration to America in 1924 because his birth certificate had a different surname to that he used ie Irwin like the rest of the family! So yes, we also learnt always check variants - I had to pay an Irish genealogist to learn my lesson!! Regards Donna Sent from my iPhone On 13 Dec 2011, at 15:19, lmerle@comcast.net wrote: > Hi John, unfortunately your logic (that you and your father, etc) always spelled the name the same, makes a couple assumptions that cannot be proven. > > They are: > -- that the past was just like the present. In other words that spelling mattered. Actually our English and Scots ancestors were a bit behind other parts of Europe, like the future German speaking countries. They had standardized spelling a lot earlier than English. If you go back three hundred years you will find many many variant spellings in published materials by highly educated people. That is because spelling was phonetic. One spelled a word as one heard it. Though sometimes people spelled it many different ways, maybe to be creative? Who knows? > > -- In the past people didn't go to school so they couldn't spell right or wrong. Granted, illiteracy rates in England, which are better documented than in other British countries, have been low for the last 300 or so years. I am recalling what Michael Gandy (a leading British genealogist) said in a lecture, in which he gave actual statistics. However most people attended until early teen years, at most, and then rarely used it. They didn't read newspapers. In fact many times they signed baptisms and marriage records with an X because to actually write your name was very uppity and it could have cost them to step out of rank. So many times signing your name with an X does not indicate illiteracy, at least in the UK. In 1830 in the hills of Tennessee -- now that's another matter entirely. > > -- If the ancestor was of a class where writing names was permitted, and always if he were not, often a clerk wrote the name down. This was a clerk who lacked the concept of standardized spelling of any words. Before that, a scribe. If you check the parish records, you will see that they were written by one person for some length of time -- a clerk or even the minister. The ancestor did NOT sign his name, such as one would do today. The clerk wrote it down. If the clerk or minister certainly didn't ask a commoner how to spell his name. First of all the working man was ignorant and probably had no idea how to do that, in the clerk's opinion. The clerk had several ways of spelling the name and just did it. It would certainly have been very very unBritish for a literate, middle class clerk to ask a working man how to spell his name. It would certainly be unheard of for a farmer or carpenter, etc, to correct a clerk's spelling. Whether this worked for merchants and above, I do! not know. I guess I'll have to ask Michael Gandy, who researched this. > > ---The clerk wrote the name down phonetically as he heard it. Now there used to be many, many many local accents in the UK. These are now disappearing due to mass media, however even today, most of the rest of us cannot understand a Geordie and people in Belfast find the native of Ballymena incomprehensible. It is very possible for a clerk or taxman from even twenty miles away to hear a surname, pronounced in a local accent, 'differently' and to transcribe it differently than a local man would. > > So if you think your ancestors could either always read and write, were always permitted to give their opinion to the clerk of the parish and the king's men collecting taxes, etc, or that their pronunciation of their name was always correctly heard and correctly written down by all clerks, etc, whose records survive -- well then, I have a great bridge in Brooklyn that you might want to purchase cheap. > > Another wrinkle is that we do not know the local patois. We speak English, not Scots. Many Scots records were recorded in Scots. The earlier ones in Latin. One can find some very strange spellings when Scots or English names are written in Latin. > > -- I had another reason but have now forgotten it, like a standup comic with a list (Number 3: There is no number 3....). > > I've seen Hume as Home and I have definitely seen it as Hulme. The addition of an L simply indicates a minor difference in pronunciation, probably an Englishism. Earlier Scots records often spelled names like Simpson as Simson, indicating that the pronunciation didn't include an aspiration at the end of the first syllable. A little puff of air. The English love these things. They began creeping into lowland Scots records in the early 1800s -- at least in eastern Stirling. > > As family researchers, we usually do not study much. This works out okay -- it leaves work for our descendants to do, and since we aren't doing brain surgery though ill-prepared to do so, no one dies. Yet if we do 'git ejikated', one of the first things the teacher tries to pound into our thick skulls is that the first, the most common reason why we fail to bag our man is our failure to research surname variants. It look a few classes, many errors and backtracking, for me to learn this. My skull is pretty thick! However, duh, finally I realized it is generally true and I had to remember this. > > So I always do a number of things to seek out surname spelling variants when I start to research a name. Checking IGI is one. Another is looking the surname up in a good surname dictionary. Until the day comes when I've researched and published a few surname books myself, I have got to assume that the guys who wrote these books knew a tiny bit more than me. So maybe I should listen to them. I try hard to remember this <grin>. Where the screwups happen is the cases where I'm sure I know what the variants are or that there were none. That's when I screw up. > > I think the key to determining whether two names identified two different sets of people or the same ones is locale. Obviously, two spelling variants are more easily identified if suddenly the one variant is not present when the other is. Foreman, who wrote on "Old Mother" Cumberland, PA, the mother county for many of us, was confused over McCamey and McCamish, for example. However when I did a very careful study of the two, using records he probably couldn't so easily get, it was clear the McCameys were in Londonderry and the McCamish surname in Hamilton Twp. But it took some research to figure that out and a number of tables in Word. > > It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. > > For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the lea! ding families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. > > However probably the spelling represented how the clerk heard the name and so was phonetic. > > The other thing to remember is the vowels change fastest both in time and locale. So it's H*me, alas. You can put any vowel in there and it worked for someone. > > I have found names that do not tend to vary in spelling in old records. However that doesn't include my maiden name of Mayson, oops, Mazon, oops, Meeson, oops Mason (through 20 variants in Durham records). Which I found a little unbelievable <grin>. > > Reading Scots parish records, I did answer a nagging question: what's the difference between a Fish and a Fisher in Scots records? One parish clerk had kindly written: Fish (Fitch) for me. I believe the Fitch is an Englishism. You see a lot of things like this in the parish records that can clarify surname changes that we'd never think of, today, just because I do not live in an area where Scots is competing with English. And so I learned a Fish was not a Fisher who got circumcized. He was a different animal entirely. > > So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. > > Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "john.hume" <john.hume@ntlworld.com> > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 5:05:35 AM > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > > Many thanks Bill for your information. > This is one of the sticking points about surnames. As a HUME, I become very > 'cross' when people insist in putting an 'L' in the middle. Why HULME, as > far as I am concerned there is absolutely no connection. HULME is part of > Lancashire, Manchester etc, whereas HUME is Scottish, and of course spelt > HOME as well. Again in Scotland if you mention HUME or HOME they know > exactly how to spell it HUME. > > As with my cousin, TWEEDDALE is a family name and has never been spelt as > TWEEDALE, it's double U, double E and double T, any other variation is not > allowed. Although I do accept the spelling mistake in the 1881 census, it > may have been down to enumerator's interpretation. This is the only example > I can find of this error. However, has he has only two daughters, his branch > of this very small family group will now cease. > > Now I know it sounds silly for me to not except any of the variations of my > name, but when ever I am asked my name, I ALWAYS end it by spelling H.U.M.E. > out to the person. My father did the same. So is it a family trait that > unknowingly we have carried on?. When I started 25 years ago, I was able to > research my direct family, using just the IGI, straight back to 1720, this > took about three hours in total. I am then amazed at the difficultly that > 'famous/infamous' people seem to have problems even going back to the mid > 19th century. Maybe it was all due to the fact that my ancestors could read > and write, thereby ensuring the surname was spelt correctly, obviously I > don't know. > > Regarding the message about DNA in Ireland. I was in Belfast and Londonderry > from 1965 -67. I was serving in the Royal Navy and had some splendid 'runs > ashore' in both places, even got invited by a total stranger to a 21st > birthday bash in Carrickfergus, frightens the life out of me now just to > think about what may have happened. If I had known more about my Irish > connections at that time I may have spent more of my time there more > fruitfully. Now I'm thinking of going over next year, but obviously now > having to pay for the privilege. It is a great shame that religion still > plays a bit part over there. To me, it doesn't matter which religion you > are, it is how you behave. I have some excellent friends who are Muslims, I > treat them as they are my own brothers. By knowing them I understand their > own divides in their religion, if you think Ireland has it's problems, try > understanding the Muslims. > > As to having your DNA taken, I had mine done for one simple reason, I wish > to know if there are any other members of my own particular branch of the > HUMES out there. Paperwork becomes scarce before 1700, thereby, spending a > £100 on such an easy test, is very good value compared to spending money on > researching something which probably isn't even there. Also, once you > receive your DNA markers, you are updated everytime a connection is made > with your own DNA at all 4 points of markers. > > Well,I must be off, playing Santa again today. Only managed to upset five > children yesterday, must do better today. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bill Limebeer" <limebeer@SENTEX.CA> > To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 7:52 PM > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > > >> On 12/12/2011 1:27 PM, john.hume wrote: >> Hi John, >> you maybe interested to know that there are Tweedales living in the >> Province of New Brunswick Canada, One of whom I knew some years ago was >> a Judge at Burton New Brunswick >> Cheers >> Bill >> On.Can. >>> Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. >>> >>> I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is >>> difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the >>> Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents >>> must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets >>> incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't >>> understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It >>> was >>> entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course >>> John >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "S. B. Mason"<sbmasonaz@cox.net> >>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM >>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>> >>> >>>> John, >>>> >>>> I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My >>>> husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British >>>> programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people >>>> speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and >>>> Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my >>>> third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being >>>> said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd >>>> usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even >>>> when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So >>>> he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat >>>> it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about >>>> embarrassing! >>>> >>>> Sara >>>> >>>> On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Today's Topics: >>>>> >>>>> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> >>>>> Message: 1 >>>>> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >>>>> From: "john.hume"<john.hume@ntlworld.com> >>>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>>> Message-ID:<8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >>>>> reply-type=original >>>>> >>>>> Hi Linda, >>>>> >>>>> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >>>>> have >>>>> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >>>>> Eve, he was >>>>> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >>>>> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >>>>> long. >>>>> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >>>>> the hedge, >>>>> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >>>>> Result over >>>>> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >>>>> now I've >>>>> taken out pet insurance. >>>>> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >>>>> BBC there >>>>> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >>>>> channels and no >>>>> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >>>>> people >>>>> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >>>>> Mark >>>>> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >>>>> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >>>>> Ireland, a >>>>> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >>>>> she and >>>>> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >>>>> and >>>>> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >>>>> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >>>>> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >>>>> >>>>> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >>>>> family >>>>> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >>>>> keep >>>>> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >>>>> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >>>>> event >>>>> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >>>>> mind >>>>> ready to publish details when they become available >>>>> >>>>> Thanks for your time >>>>> regards >>>>> John Hume >>>> >>>> ------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>>> the >>>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >>> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi John, unfortunately your logic (that you and your father, etc) always spelled the name the same, makes a couple assumptions that cannot be proven. They are: -- that the past was just like the present. In other words that spelling mattered. Actually our English and Scots ancestors were a bit behind other parts of Europe, like the future German speaking countries. They had standardized spelling a lot earlier than English. If you go back three hundred years you will find many many variant spellings in published materials by highly educated people. That is because spelling was phonetic. One spelled a word as one heard it. Though sometimes people spelled it many different ways, maybe to be creative? Who knows? -- In the past people didn't go to school so they couldn't spell right or wrong. Granted, illiteracy rates in England, which are better documented than in other British countries, have been low for the last 300 or so years. I am recalling what Michael Gandy (a leading British genealogist) said in a lecture, in which he gave actual statistics. However most people attended until early teen years, at most, and then rarely used it. They didn't read newspapers. In fact many times they signed baptisms and marriage records with an X because to actually write your name was very uppity and it could have cost them to step out of rank. So many times signing your name with an X does not indicate illiteracy, at least in the UK. In 1830 in the hills of Tennessee -- now that's another matter entirely. -- If the ancestor was of a class where writing names was permitted, and always if he were not, often a clerk wrote the name down. This was a clerk who lacked the concept of standardized spelling of any words. Before that, a scribe. If you check the parish records, you will see that they were written by one person for some length of time -- a clerk or even the minister. The ancestor did NOT sign his name, such as one would do today. The clerk wrote it down. If the clerk or minister certainly didn't ask a commoner how to spell his name. First of all the working man was ignorant and probably had no idea how to do that, in the clerk's opinion. The clerk had several ways of spelling the name and just did it. It would certainly have been very very unBritish for a literate, middle class clerk to ask a working man how to spell his name. It would certainly be unheard of for a farmer or carpenter, etc, to correct a clerk's spelling. Whether this worked for merchants and above, I do not know. I guess I'll have to ask Michael Gandy, who researched this. ---The clerk wrote the name down phonetically as he heard it. Now there used to be many, many many local accents in the UK. These are now disappearing due to mass media, however even today, most of the rest of us cannot understand a Geordie and people in Belfast find the native of Ballymena incomprehensible. It is very possible for a clerk or taxman from even twenty miles away to hear a surname, pronounced in a local accent, 'differently' and to transcribe it differently than a local man would. So if you think your ancestors could either always read and write, were always permitted to give their opinion to the clerk of the parish and the king's men collecting taxes, etc, or that their pronunciation of their name was always correctly heard and correctly written down by all clerks, etc, whose records survive -- well then, I have a great bridge in Brooklyn that you might want to purchase cheap. Another wrinkle is that we do not know the local patois. We speak English, not Scots. Many Scots records were recorded in Scots. The earlier ones in Latin. One can find some very strange spellings when Scots or English names are written in Latin. -- I had another reason but have now forgotten it, like a standup comic with a list (Number 3: There is no number 3....). I've seen Hume as Home and I have definitely seen it as Hulme. The addition of an L simply indicates a minor difference in pronunciation, probably an Englishism. Earlier Scots records often spelled names like Simpson as Simson, indicating that the pronunciation didn't include an aspiration at the end of the first syllable. A little puff of air. The English love these things. They began creeping into lowland Scots records in the early 1800s -- at least in eastern Stirling. As family researchers, we usually do not study much. This works out okay -- it leaves work for our descendants to do, and since we aren't doing brain surgery though ill-prepared to do so, no one dies. Yet if we do 'git ejikated', one of the first things the teacher tries to pound into our thick skulls is that the first, the most common reason why we fail to bag our man is our failure to research surname variants. It look a few classes, many errors and backtracking, for me to learn this. My skull is pretty thick! However, duh, finally I realized it is generally true and I had to remember this. So I always do a number of things to seek out surname spelling variants when I start to research a name. Checking IGI is one. Another is looking the surname up in a good surname dictionary. Until the day comes when I've researched and published a few surname books myself, I have got to assume that the guys who wrote these books knew a tiny bit more than me. So maybe I should listen to them. I try hard to remember this <grin>. Where the screwups happen is the cases where I'm sure I know what the variants are or that there were none. That's when I screw up. I think the key to determining whether two names identified two different sets of people or the same ones is locale. Obviously, two spelling variants are more easily identified if suddenly the one variant is not present when the other is. Foreman, who wrote on "Old Mother" Cumberland, PA, the mother county for many of us, was confused over McCamey and McCamish, for example. However when I did a very careful study of the two, using records he probably couldn't so easily get, it was clear the McCameys were in Londonderry and the McCamish surname in Hamilton Twp. But it took some research to figure that out and a number of tables in Word. It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the leading families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. However probably the spelling represented how the clerk heard the name and so was phonetic. The other thing to remember is the vowels change fastest both in time and locale. So it's H*me, alas. You can put any vowel in there and it worked for someone. I have found names that do not tend to vary in spelling in old records. However that doesn't include my maiden name of Mayson, oops, Mazon, oops, Meeson, oops Mason (through 20 variants in Durham records). Which I found a little unbelievable <grin>. Reading Scots parish records, I did answer a nagging question: what's the difference between a Fish and a Fisher in Scots records? One parish clerk had kindly written: Fish (Fitch) for me. I believe the Fitch is an Englishism. You see a lot of things like this in the parish records that can clarify surname changes that we'd never think of, today, just because I do not live in an area where Scots is competing with English. And so I learned a Fish was not a Fisher who got circumcized. He was a different animal entirely. So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania ----- Original Message ----- From: "john.hume" <john.hume@ntlworld.com> To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 5:05:35 AM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple Many thanks Bill for your information. This is one of the sticking points about surnames. As a HUME, I become very 'cross' when people insist in putting an 'L' in the middle. Why HULME, as far as I am concerned there is absolutely no connection. HULME is part of Lancashire, Manchester etc, whereas HUME is Scottish, and of course spelt HOME as well. Again in Scotland if you mention HUME or HOME they know exactly how to spell it HUME. As with my cousin, TWEEDDALE is a family name and has never been spelt as TWEEDALE, it's double U, double E and double T, any other variation is not allowed. Although I do accept the spelling mistake in the 1881 census, it may have been down to enumerator's interpretation. This is the only example I can find of this error. However, has he has only two daughters, his branch of this very small family group will now cease. Now I know it sounds silly for me to not except any of the variations of my name, but when ever I am asked my name, I ALWAYS end it by spelling H.U.M.E. out to the person. My father did the same. So is it a family trait that unknowingly we have carried on?. When I started 25 years ago, I was able to research my direct family, using just the IGI, straight back to 1720, this took about three hours in total. I am then amazed at the difficultly that 'famous/infamous' people seem to have problems even going back to the mid 19th century. Maybe it was all due to the fact that my ancestors could read and write, thereby ensuring the surname was spelt correctly, obviously I don't know. Regarding the message about DNA in Ireland. I was in Belfast and Londonderry from 1965 -67. I was serving in the Royal Navy and had some splendid 'runs ashore' in both places, even got invited by a total stranger to a 21st birthday bash in Carrickfergus, frightens the life out of me now just to think about what may have happened. If I had known more about my Irish connections at that time I may have spent more of my time there more fruitfully. Now I'm thinking of going over next year, but obviously now having to pay for the privilege. It is a great shame that religion still plays a bit part over there. To me, it doesn't matter which religion you are, it is how you behave. I have some excellent friends who are Muslims, I treat them as they are my own brothers. By knowing them I understand their own divides in their religion, if you think Ireland has it's problems, try understanding the Muslims. As to having your DNA taken, I had mine done for one simple reason, I wish to know if there are any other members of my own particular branch of the HUMES out there. Paperwork becomes scarce before 1700, thereby, spending a £100 on such an easy test, is very good value compared to spending money on researching something which probably isn't even there. Also, once you receive your DNA markers, you are updated everytime a connection is made with your own DNA at all 4 points of markers. Well,I must be off, playing Santa again today. Only managed to upset five children yesterday, must do better today. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Limebeer" <limebeer@SENTEX.CA> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 7:52 PM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > On 12/12/2011 1:27 PM, john.hume wrote: > Hi John, > you maybe interested to know that there are Tweedales living in the > Province of New Brunswick Canada, One of whom I knew some years ago was > a Judge at Burton New Brunswick > Cheers > Bill > On.Can. >> Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. >> >> I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is >> difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the >> Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents >> must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets >> incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't >> understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It >> was >> entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course >> John >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "S. B. Mason"<sbmasonaz@cox.net> >> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> >> >>> John, >>> >>> I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My >>> husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British >>> programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people >>> speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and >>> Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my >>> third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being >>> said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd >>> usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even >>> when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So >>> he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat >>> it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about >>> embarrassing! >>> >>> Sara >>> >>> On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Today's Topics: >>>> >>>> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >>>> >>>> >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> >>>> Message: 1 >>>> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >>>> From: "john.hume"<john.hume@ntlworld.com> >>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>> Message-ID:<8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >>>> reply-type=original >>>> >>>> Hi Linda, >>>> >>>> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >>>> have >>>> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >>>> Eve, he was >>>> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >>>> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >>>> long. >>>> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >>>> the hedge, >>>> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >>>> Result over >>>> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >>>> now I've >>>> taken out pet insurance. >>>> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >>>> BBC there >>>> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >>>> channels and no >>>> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >>>> people >>>> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >>>> Mark >>>> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >>>> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >>>> Ireland, a >>>> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >>>> she and >>>> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >>>> and >>>> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >>>> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >>>> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >>>> >>>> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >>>> family >>>> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >>>> keep >>>> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >>>> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >>>> event >>>> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >>>> mind >>>> ready to publish details when they become available >>>> >>>> Thanks for your time >>>> regards >>>> John Hume >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>> the >>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Cindy, bolding and italicizing doesn't work on Rootsweb lists that accept only straight text, so...eh, can you extract the parts you want us to note? Yes, Linda. I am extracting a portion of one of your discussions on why there were variations of surname spellings all in one deed or will: Linda said: <snip> In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did.<snip> Cindy says: From a DAR genealogy seminar in Whitney, TX: Why there can be several spellings of the same name in the same deed... Speaker Marcy ?? of Dallas area said that often the reason we find a variation of spellings on the same surname in a deed, will, etc. is that a courthouse clerk was transcribing and filing the document for the court. The clerk wanted to ensure that the document's surnames could be located thru a variety of spellings. > I have a deed that illustrates well the variety of spellings of 2 surnames situation. It includes my long-time dead end 1743 McIntire of Falmouth/Portland, Maine. We, me and several other 4th& 5th McIntire/McIntyre cousins, have worked separately& together for 30+ yrs. Two of us are originally from Maine, one from Dallas, TX , one from state of Washington, one from Australiahave reached a dead end on our Henry McIntire/McIntyre. No connections yet to the many Scot McIntires of Maine& Massachusetts who have been illuminated in at least 3 McIntire, etc. books. I digress. The deed is below as a sample of the various spelllings of the 2 primary parties, McIntire/Blackstone in a 1743 deed that I transcribed as best I could. > > Bk 2/P 478-9 > Henry Mcintire of Falmouth Hannah Coy, John Coy's daughter of County > Essex Massachusetts. > > P. 479: by Benjamin Blackstone of the Town of Fa/mouth in the County of > York Yeoman and Henry Mackentire of the Same Town Husbandman The Receipt whereof we do > hereby acknowledge and our selves therewith fully consented satisfied and paid > have therefore given granted bargained sold aliened ensconced conveyed and past over and do > by these presents fully freely clearly and absolutely give grant bargain sell aliene ensconce > convey and pass over unto them the P.? Benjamin Blackstone and Henry McEntire their heirs and > assigns forever > Sixty acres of Land lying in the Town of Falmouth aforesd at a Place > called New Casco which Sixty Acres of Land is bounded as followeth beginning of the northerly corner > of a lot of land laid out to Warren Drinkwater from<SNIP> thence running to the land of Drinkwater and so by the land of > Drinkwater to ye bounds first mentioned only allowing a convenient highway throught the same together > with all the priviledges and appurtenances to the same now being or ever may be from thence > arising ---- To Have and to hold all and singular the above granted premises free and clear from us > the P.? Hannah Coy and Mary Gilbert our heirs Executors and Administrators unto them the said > Blackstone and Mackentire their heirs Executors Administrators and assigns hereby > giving unto them quiet and peaceable possession of all and Singular the above granted premises the > which they their heirs and assigns shall and may from time to time and at all times forever > hereafter have hold use occupy possess and enjoy to their entire use benefit and behoof forever and > furthermore we the P.? Hannah Coy and Mary Gilbert for our selves our heirs Executors& Administrators > do promise grant and covenant to and with the P.? Blackstone and McEntire their heirs and > assigns in manner and form following that is to say untill the ensealing and > delivery of these presents we are the true and lawful owners of the above granted land and have in > ourselves good right full power and authority to make conveyance as is above expressed and furthermore that > we will from time to time and at all times forever hereafter warrant and defend the P.? Blackstone > and Mackentire their heirs and assigns in the quiet and peaceable possession of the same against > all and every person laying any lawful claim unto the same or any part thereof and in witness and > confirmation hereof we thoud Hannah Coy& Mary Gilbert have set to our hands& seals the 3d day of > September in the 17th year of his majesty's reign anno domini 1743 --- > Signed Sealed& Delivered in presence of > Ezra? Sargent Junr Ignatius Sargent > Hannah Coy > Mary Gilbert > Essex Co Glocester September 8th 1743 > 1743?? > Recorded 2th Feb 1764 > > Cindy (McIntire) Johnson

Re: Linda Merle's message "3" below on DNA Made Simple Hi Linda, I learned another great tidbit from your message regarding people signing with 'X' in the old days. You mentioned the possibility that a person in Ireland could well have signed their name but rather than appear uppity the person would sign with an X. Hope I translated that tidbit in my brain correctly. lol I have a tiny bit of new info I learned last month at a DAR genealogy seminar in Whitney, TX. It surprised me very much. First, I will 'Bold & Italicise' only the section of your message that my new bit pertains to on why there can be several spellings of the same name in the same deed or will filed at the courthouse. 2nd, I will add my 'new bit learned' at the bottom of this message. On 12/13/2011 9:19 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re; Scotch-Irish Merchants in Colonial America (D H) > 2. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) > 3. Re: DNA Made Simple (lmerle@comcast.net) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------------------------ > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:19:27 +0000 (UTC) > From: lmerle@comcast.net > Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: > <378540863.1101607.1323789567110.JavaMail.root@sz0165a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> > Hi John, ... It's harder in the New World, I think, where there were more dialects and less education. People in a parish in the hills of Virginia, for example, could have come, and did come, from 'all over', not just Britain, but France, Germany, Holland, etc. Some were native speakers of the evolving local dialect. Others just hopped off the boat. In some cases you can find a man's surname spelled multiple ways in a deed or will (I've seen both). /*He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did.*/ Sometimes the only way to determine if there is one man or several is to seek out additional information, such as locale, associates, and his wife. > For example there were two men named William McCarmack/McCarmish etc in Old Bedford County in the 1770s and 80s. One I was an Irish immigrant living on Little Wreck Island and one the son of Micajah McCarmack, whose place of residence I forget. However when about 1786 or so the county was divided up, one was still in Bedford (Micajah's son) and one was in the new Campbell County. That was the Irish immigrant because Little Wreck Island was in it. And when he split for Tennessee, only one appeared in the tax records for the area -- Micajah's son in Bedford. All these guys and several other families are indexed together in the deed book, court records (Micajah's family sued everyone, especially each other), and will book. Their surname spellings were entirely inconsistent and greatly varied. Sometimes the only way to tell which guy it was was by who he was suing or wheeling and dealing in land. Micajah's family endlessly did land deals, often with the Wrights, one of the leadi! > ng families of the area. The McCamish boys never seemed to have left their plot. Carriers of the M222 variant and late of Tyrone, they'd learned how to survive among the Proddy mackerels: keep the head down out of the line of fire. > > > So if you do get 'stuck' somewhere in the past, revisit surname spelling variants. It might help. > > Linda Merle -- in cold but sunny Pennsylvania > *Cindy's New Bit Learned!!* Regarding your . /*He didn't write the deed or will. The clerk did. */Speaker Marcy ?? of Dallas area said that often the reason we find a variation of spellings on the same surname in a deed, will, etc. is that a courthouse clerk was transcribing and filing the document for the court. The clerk wanted to ensure that the document's surnames could be located thru a variety of spellings. I have a deed on a very dead end 1743 McIntire, Falmouth/Portland, Maine. We, me and several other 4th & 5th McIntire/McIntyre cousins originally from Maine, one from Dallas, TX , one from state of Washington, one from Australia) have reached a dead end on our Henry, Henery, Hanery, Henary, Hanary, etc. McIntire/McIntyre. No connections yet to the many McIntires of Maine & Massachusetts who have been illuminated in at least 3 McIntire, etc. books. I digress. The deed is below as a sample of the various spelllings of the 2 primary parties in a 1743 deed that I transcribed as best I could. Bk 2/P 478 Henry Mcintire of Falmouth Hannah Coy, John Coy's daughter of County Essex Massachusetts. (see photocopy of P.479 which has lots of detail - TYPED below) P. 479: by Benjamin Blackstone of the Town of Fa/mouth in the County of York Yeoman and Henry Mackentire of the Same Town Husbandman The Receipt whereof we do hereby acknowledge and our selves therewith fully consented satisfied and paid have therefore given granted bargained sold aliened ensconced conveyed and past over and do by these presents fully freely clearly and absolutely give grant bargain sell aliene ensconce convey and pass over unto them the P.? Benjamin Blackstone and Henry McEntire their heirs and assigns forever Sixty acres of Land lying in the Town of Fa/mouth aforesd at a Place called New Casco which Sixty Acres of Land is bounded as followeth beginning of the northerly corner of a lot of land laid out to Warren Drinkwater from thence running north 45 deg. East Sixty Rods to a stake from thence running north 45 deg West one hundred and sixty rods to a stake from thence running South 45 deg West Sixty rods to the land of Drinkwater and so by the land of Drinkwater to ye bounds first mentioned only allowing a convenient highway throught the same together with all the priviledges and appurtenances to the same now being or ever may be from thence arising ---- To Have and to hold all and singular the above granted premises free and clear from us the P.? Hannah Coy and Mary Gilbert our heirs Executors and Administrators unto them the said Blackstone and Mackentire their heirs Executors Administrators and assigns hereby giving unto them quiet and peaceable possession of all and Singular the above granted premises the which they their heirs and assigns shall and may from time to time and at all times forever hereafter have hold use occupy possess and enjoy to their entire use benefit and behoof forever and furthermore we the P.? Hannah Coy and Mary Gilbert for our selves our heirs Executors & Administrators do promise grant and covenant to and with the P.? Blackstone and McEntire their heirs and assigns in manner and form following that is to say untill the ensealing and delivery of these presents we are the true and lawful owners of the above granted land and have in ourselves good right full power and authority to make conveyance as is above expressed and furthermore that we will from time to time and at all times forever hereafter warrant and defend the P.? Blackstone and Mackentire their heirs and assigns in the quiet and peaceable possession of the same against all and every person laying any lawful claim unto the same or any part thereof and in witness and confirmation hereof we thoud Hannah Coy & Mary Gilbert have set to our hands & seals the 3d day of September in the 17th year of his majesty's reign anno domini 1743 --- Signed Sealed & Delivered in presence of Ezra? Sargent Junr Ignatius Sargent Hannah Coy Mary Gilbert Essex Co Glocester September 8th 1743 1743?? Recorded 2th Feb 1764 Cindy (McIntire) Johnson

Many thanks Bill for your information. This is one of the sticking points about surnames. As a HUME, I become very 'cross' when people insist in putting an 'L' in the middle. Why HULME, as far as I am concerned there is absolutely no connection. HULME is part of Lancashire, Manchester etc, whereas HUME is Scottish, and of course spelt HOME as well. Again in Scotland if you mention HUME or HOME they know exactly how to spell it HUME. As with my cousin, TWEEDDALE is a family name and has never been spelt as TWEEDALE, it's double U, double E and double T, any other variation is not allowed. Although I do accept the spelling mistake in the 1881 census, it may have been down to enumerator's interpretation. This is the only example I can find of this error. However, has he has only two daughters, his branch of this very small family group will now cease. Now I know it sounds silly for me to not except any of the variations of my name, but when ever I am asked my name, I ALWAYS end it by spelling H.U.M.E. out to the person. My father did the same. So is it a family trait that unknowingly we have carried on?. When I started 25 years ago, I was able to research my direct family, using just the IGI, straight back to 1720, this took about three hours in total. I am then amazed at the difficultly that 'famous/infamous' people seem to have problems even going back to the mid 19th century. Maybe it was all due to the fact that my ancestors could read and write, thereby ensuring the surname was spelt correctly, obviously I don't know. Regarding the message about DNA in Ireland. I was in Belfast and Londonderry from 1965 -67. I was serving in the Royal Navy and had some splendid 'runs ashore' in both places, even got invited by a total stranger to a 21st birthday bash in Carrickfergus, frightens the life out of me now just to think about what may have happened. If I had known more about my Irish connections at that time I may have spent more of my time there more fruitfully. Now I'm thinking of going over next year, but obviously now having to pay for the privilege. It is a great shame that religion still plays a bit part over there. To me, it doesn't matter which religion you are, it is how you behave. I have some excellent friends who are Muslims, I treat them as they are my own brothers. By knowing them I understand their own divides in their religion, if you think Ireland has it's problems, try understanding the Muslims. As to having your DNA taken, I had mine done for one simple reason, I wish to know if there are any other members of my own particular branch of the HUMES out there. Paperwork becomes scarce before 1700, thereby, spending a £100 on such an easy test, is very good value compared to spending money on researching something which probably isn't even there. Also, once you receive your DNA markers, you are updated everytime a connection is made with your own DNA at all 4 points of markers. Well,I must be off, playing Santa again today. Only managed to upset five children yesterday, must do better today. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Limebeer" <limebeer@SENTEX.CA> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 7:52 PM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > On 12/12/2011 1:27 PM, john.hume wrote: > Hi John, > you maybe interested to know that there are Tweedales living in the > Province of New Brunswick Canada, One of whom I knew some years ago was > a Judge at Burton New Brunswick > Cheers > Bill > On.Can. >> Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. >> >> I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is >> difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the >> Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents >> must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets >> incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't >> understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It >> was >> entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course >> John >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "S. B. Mason"<sbmasonaz@cox.net> >> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> >> >>> John, >>> >>> I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My >>> husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British >>> programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people >>> speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and >>> Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my >>> third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being >>> said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd >>> usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even >>> when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So >>> he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat >>> it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about >>> embarrassing! >>> >>> Sara >>> >>> On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Today's Topics: >>>> >>>> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >>>> >>>> >>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> >>>> Message: 1 >>>> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >>>> From: "john.hume"<john.hume@ntlworld.com> >>>> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >>>> To:<scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >>>> Message-ID:<8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >>>> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >>>> reply-type=original >>>> >>>> Hi Linda, >>>> >>>> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >>>> have >>>> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >>>> Eve, he was >>>> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >>>> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >>>> long. >>>> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >>>> the hedge, >>>> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >>>> Result over >>>> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >>>> now I've >>>> taken out pet insurance. >>>> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >>>> BBC there >>>> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >>>> channels and no >>>> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >>>> people >>>> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >>>> Mark >>>> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >>>> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >>>> Ireland, a >>>> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >>>> she and >>>> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >>>> and >>>> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >>>> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >>>> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >>>> >>>> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >>>> family >>>> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >>>> keep >>>> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >>>> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >>>> event >>>> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >>>> mind >>>> ready to publish details when they become available >>>> >>>> Thanks for your time >>>> regards >>>> John Hume >>> >>> ------------------------------- >>> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >>> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >>> the >>> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Sorry, just realized my post could be misconstrued! I don't need quote of what is in the book, just to know IF the book has names etc, as per query, and I can then order it myself. Apologies! DH

Sharon, just on the back of these 2 posts.... Hugh Swan had next property to Wm Montgomery... Can I ask if there is any information on Hugh Swan in the book, did he sell up to return to Killead? Any family names? Only if you have time to check!! Thanks Dave _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Scotch-Irish Merchants in Colonial America," pp. 127-128, I discuss a Hugh Swan, merchant. He was sued in August 1763 by Isaac Whitelock and > Benjamin Davis as "Hugh Swan of Paxton Township, Lancaster County,Pennsylvania, shopkeeper." At the next session of Lancaster County Court, James > Simm brought an action for debt against "Hugh Swan of Lancaster County, otherwise called Hugh Swan of Killead Parish, County of Antrim, linen draper." > Swan settled these and a series of similar cases by payment in full. In 1771 as "Hugh Swan, storekeeper of Hanover Township," he mortgaged property > there. He returned to Killead and appears in various advertisements in the Belfast Newsetter (e.g. May 24, 1774 and April 11, 1775) as a linen merchant > and owner of a bleach green. Obviously one of yours. ___________________________________________________________ William Montgomery, Sr., Died in Carolina July, 1796--- Looking at mix of names in WILL is interesting BAILEY/BUCHANAN/MCKNIGHT (most interesting to me is his neighbour!) Will of November, 1796; mentions; * wife Hannah, * son William, * eldest daughter * Frances BUCHANAN, * second daughter Elizabeth BAILEY, * daughter Hannah McKnight * daughter Mary, * son John, * son David, * daughter Rebecca and her child Jean. and Mentions Francis Buchanan.

But that is the whole point of the discussion Ulster is an entity in and off itself. Linde is to be congratulated on telling it as it is. She has done a great service to the lies. It is a pity that some did not seem to see it as the parable that it was, well written and funny. It genuinely tells it as it is. Of course there will be those who don't like it, tough, our country, our rules. A few comments. It would be considered the height of bad manners to turn up at someone's door if you did not know them. This was the position when I left Ulster in 1979, and it would be even more so today. Remember there was a good going War in Ulster from 1968 to say 1990, and people got killed by strangers coming to the door. In Ulster today there is the 90 90 rule, 90% of the population live in communities where 90% of the population are their co-religionists. This leads to great complications in a lot of social intercourse. The religious thing may be fascinating, and a lot of work has been done on it, but it is deadly serious. As far as DNA is concerned, as well as the criminal association, and the proof of parentage in cases of doubt few of the ordinary community will see any utility in it. The question which I as a potential DNA donor who is interested in genealogy would ask is A. Why should I bother? B, Who deals with the potential problems which discoveries about real parenthood might bring? If I who would be kindly disposed to Genealogy would take this line, how would those who are mildly antagonistic to the whole thing jump. We know who we are and that is enough for us. There will be people who will respond courteously and perhaps with information. There will also be those who simply don't see the point. Guess which are the majority? Edward > -----Original Message----- > From: scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Carol > and Joe Marlo > Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:37 PM > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Cc: FRANK GEBHART > Subject: Re: [S-I] Thoughts on replying to an American/ > Canadian/Australian/ New Zealand/ Argentinian/ South African/ > Englih/Scots/ letter > > Hi,Susan, > > You wouldn't happen to have a SLOWEY in your NI line, would > you?  This is the line that my brother and I have been > searching for for over ten years.  Our approaches have been > polite, but most of them have been ignored; a couple of > replies have been hostile.  We've approached people about > other national lines (in Germany, France, England, and Spain) > and usually we've at least had polite responses.  NI seems to > be an entity in and of itself. > > Carol > > > > ________________________________ > From: SUSAN BR <susanbrown7777@sympatico.ca> > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 6:28 AM > Subject: Re: [S-I] Thoughts on replying to an American/ > Canadian/ Australian/ New Zealand/ Argentinian/ South > African/ Englih/ Scots/ letter > > > > Linde > I want to respond to this email with my perspective on some > things I've found while visiting NI. > > Let me begin by thanking you for taking the time at such a > busy time of year to explain your original email clearer.  I > too didn't completed understand what you were trying to > convey so again thank you for this clarification. > > We are all guilty of opening emails, putting them aside for > later, and totally forgetting to respond.  These days we are > all too busy it seems but of course we don't do it > intentionally at all. > > As a Canadian who spends a lot of time in the US and having > been in Ireland a couple of times I know what you are saying > about the Scots-Irish.  I've observed that people over there, > and for their own reasons as you suggest, are more reluctant > to open up to complete strangers.  We are in their territory > and they're extremely protective of their territory.  In > Canada and the US we tend to be more open with complete > strangers but to a safe level and comfort zone.  My > experience with people in NI is that they are very very aware > of their neighbours religion which I find very fascinating.  > I can honestly say I don't have a clue what religion my > neighbours are unless they tell me nor am I really interested > in knowing.  And again, it is for obvious reasons over the > years to know who you feel safe with and who you don't feel > safe with I'm sure.  History definitely dictates who we > become and how we feel about things. > > The researchers I've had the pleasure of meeting are ALL > extremely helpful and more than willing to drive you around > all over to help you find your ancestors properties But they > aren't prepared to go to their door for you.  We Canadians > and Americans would do it after traveling so far with no > hesitation.  When you do knock on a strangers door they > aren't always willing and receptive so people need to be > prepared for that and tread lightly.  I've run into this a few times. > > As for DNA, you've answered a question I've had.  Over the > years I've been perplexed at the unwillingness of a male in > Co. Antrim who could really answer a lot of questions if we > could just get his DNA but he absolutely is unwilling to > participate. I've corresponded with the family a number of > times, even had them over for tea while staying there but > nope, he is not interested.  Maybe with more advertising over > there locally it might give more insight to the advantages of > doing DNA.  Here in US and Canada I know a lot of people who > are thrilled with DNA results and comparing these results on > familytreedna.  Having said that, people over there are > quite settled in their world and just are not interested or > maybe there's a safety factor involved for them too. > > You mention your personal connection to genealogy.  I too > feel exactly the same way.  I've had the pleasure and luck of > getting back to 1560 with my McCaw lineage and back even > further to Isle of Bute with the expertise of many > researchers from Co. Antrim.  It is my goal to give that same > gift to as many as I can now and it's in my blood too, I love it. >   > Over the years doing Loyalist research in Canada, mostly from > Co. Antrim I've identified peoples ancestors just by surname > association from headstones I've seen over there.  The > inter-connection you refer to over there, I see here too.  > People travelled and settled with their neighbours which can > be found on ships lists, land registrations and cemetery > lists over here. >   > I encourage people to try to get over to Northern Ireland if > they can.  There's no feeling in this world like the feeling > of stepping on the same ground your gr gr gr grandparents > living on.  It is a very unusual feeling and I can't wait to > do it again. > > People might be interested in looking into this event too.  > It is well worth the money. > >   > http://nalil.blogspot.com/2009/04/route-back-home-ballymoney-2 010.html  Take time to look at the files on this blog too.  > They do a great job. > > Linda Merle keep up the great work here,  Susan    > > > > > > > From: jglunney@eircom.net > > Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:01:58 +0000 > > To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com > > Subject: Re: [S-I] Thoughts on replying to an American/ > Canadian/ Australian/ New Zealand/ Argentinian/ South > African/ Englih/ Scots/ letter > > > > I've had a couple of emails about this message which have made me > > think that in trying to be amusing, I didn't manage to strike the > > notes I meant to. I wanted to say to descendants that if they don't > > always get a reply to an initial contact, there might be several > > reasons why, and to point out that things might look different from > > this side of the Atlantic > > > > 1. Sometimes the recipient of your letter might mean to reply, but > > things just make it difficult, and once you don't reply to > a message > > for a few weeks then it gets embarrassing to pick it up again > > > > 2. After years of research, you might well feel that you have > > established kinship with the folk in Ireland, that you already know > > them, but your letter comes out of the blue to them; they > don't know > > anything at all about you, and if it is hard for you to > imagine their > > lives in co. Antrim, so different from yours in Arizona, it is > > equally hard for them to imagine you. People in Ulster might well > > feel reluctant to write a letter which might have to discuss > > potentially upsetting topics like illegitimacy, money, land, to > > someone they don't know in the slightest > > > > 3. When all is said and done, most people in Ulster don't know that > > much about distant ancestors; most people in rural areas know a lot > > about recent connections, say back to their great grandparents and > > may know generally who was related to their family within > the last 50 > > or 60 years, but before that, there is in general very little exact > > knowledge. People in the towns, may often know less than people on > > farms. And thus they don't want to have to write back and > disappoint > > someone, who is keen to know about people who left 200 years ago. > > they might not want to have to write a letter saying, "no, sorry, I > > don't know anything" when they instinctively know how disappointing > > that will be for the recipient > > > > 4. Mention of DNA links might be a bit offputting for many > people in > > Ireland; almost no-one understands it or wants to get tangled with > > it. If they have heard of DNA at all, it would be in > connection with > > crime investigations and paternity cases. Much better not > to mention > > DNA in a first approach. > > > > 5. I failed especially badly to get my message across in the > > section where I was talking about the kind of > "Oirish-American" lingo > > which is a turn-off for many people in Northern Ireland > (for obvious > > political and historical reasons; and of course I realize that the > > group who read and write Scotch-Irish Rootsweb postings > wouldn't make > > such an egregious mistake as to use such language in writing to > > Ulster relatives!), and so I want to make it clearer to you > all that > > many people in Ulster very often do feel very strongly the > connection > > with a place and with a lineage. I personally hope that what I have > > been doing in genealogy on the internet will help others make that > > connection for themselves. This is something which is a > vital part of > > my heritage, and I realize how lucky I am that I do know > who I am and > > where I came from. Knowledge of ancestral places is a wonderful > > personal strength for me; everyone who wants to, should be able to > > find that knowledge of who and where. I would suggest to everyone > > that even if you can't make direct contact with distant kin > relatives > > in Ireland, that it can be almost as satisfying to make > contact with > > the place itself; to see the same horizon that your ancestors saw. > > And also to make contact with descendants of other families from > > there, that your ancestor would have known. People interested in > > Ulster Scots ancestry should be aware of how > inter-connected all the > > families in a given area of several townlands would have > been; if not > > related, everyone in a five mile radius would have been > known. It can > > be immensely satisfying to make contact with people whose ancestors > > were from the same area. > > > > 6. And finally to say; don't take it personally! there might be > > reasons why they didn't reply. If your initial contact > doesn't get a > > response, wait a while and try again, maybe with a > Christmas card, or > > a postcard from your hometown. And make sure it too has your return > > address; I really have heard of several enthusiastic "American > > letters" which didn't have return addresses on the letter itself > > > > I hope this clarifies what I was saying in my post of a week ago; I > > hope no one has been offended. > > > > Linde L > > > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >                         > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

If any of you have tried to ferret out information about your ancestors in the U.S. Appalachians (Hillbilly country), you have already learned that those Scotch-Irish ancestors of ours brought all that reserve, suspicion, and ATTITUDE with them and it is still alive and well in those mountains. About ten years ago, my daughter and I attended a family reunion in West Virginia for people who descended from my Dad's S-I immigrant ancestor. We wanted to see personally the mountains where this colonist ancestor had settled and the famed "oid stone house" his son had built. We learned we were related to these folks only through research - the last time anyone in my line had contact with the family was four generations ago. On that first visit, there were about 7 new people from other states in attendance, a few from adjoining states plus varying numbers of people who lived in the home county and had volunteered as guides. Nearly all those who attended already knew one another, or knew about one another, and we Californians were definitely outsiders. We were welcomed very politely, but that "sizing-you-up" attitude stuck out like a sore thumb. After four days of "togetherness" -- sharing information, researching local archives, visiting graves, ancestral homes and historical sites and having lunch & dinner together every day -- they were satisfied that we were, indeed, cousins, and I guess we passed some sort of kinship worthiness test. The air grew noticeably warmer during the final two days, and at the closing dinner we were both given warm and sincere invitations to return the following year. We did return and, since we were now certified kin, they rolled out the red carpet! I still keep in touch with several cousins I met there. Virginia -----Original Message----- From: scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:scotch-irish-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of AnnL7777@aol.com Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 3:37 PM To: scotch-irish@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [S-I] Thoughts on replying to an American/ Canadian/ Australian/ New Zea Linde, I did "get it " and thought it was amusing and I am sure many more did as well, perhaps because we have had the same experiences ourselves. Thank you for the thorough explanation, though, because it added a lot to the discussion, and the more we share about this sort of thing the more we learn. It was great. Ann In a message dated 12/12/2011 4:51:44 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, scotch Lunney Family <jglunney@eircom.net writes: I've had a couple of emails about this message which have made me think that in trying to be amusing, I didn't manage to strike the notes I meant to. I wanted to say to descendants that if they don't always get a reply to an initial contact, there might be several reasons why, and to point out that things might look different from this side of the Atlantic ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Linde, I did "get it " and thought it was amusing and I am sure many more did as well, perhaps because we have had the same experiences ourselves. Thank you for the thorough explanation, though, because it added a lot to the discussion, and the more we share about this sort of thing the more we learn. It was great. Ann In a message dated 12/12/2011 4:51:44 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, scotch Lunney Family <jglunney@eircom.net writes: I've had a couple of emails about this message which have made me think that in trying to be amusing, I didn't manage to strike the notes I meant to. I wanted to say to descendants that if they don't always get a reply to an initial contact, there might be several reasons why, and to point out that things might look different from this side of the Atlantic

Thank you Sara, glad I made someone smile today. I understand what you are saying about the Irish accent it really is difficult to understand. But for a real challenge you want to read the Yorkshire Bible. Now that is an education. But on a serious note, accents must have played a part in peoples names being entered on census sheets incorrectly. One of my cousins,has the surname TWEEDDALE, couldn't understand why he couldn't find his grandfather in the 1881 census. It was entered as TWIDALE, understandable of course John ----- Original Message ----- From: "S. B. Mason" <sbmasonaz@cox.net> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 5:54 PM Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple > John, > > I had to laugh at your difficulty understanding Americans in films. My > husband and I long ago resorted to using closed captions on British > programs on US TV. My worst experience with communicating with people > speaking a common language (English) was on a trip to Ireland and > Northern Ireland with my hard-of-hearing brother. Since this was my > third visit I was fairly proficient in understanding what was being > said to me but I couldn't honestly say I understood every word but I'd > usually understand the intent of what was being said. My brother, even > when he could hear what was said, couldn't decipher the accent. So > he'd turn to me and say, "WHAT DID THEY SAY?", and expect me to repeat > it verbatim which, of course, I often couldn't do. Talk about > embarrassing! > > Sara > > On Dec 12, 2011, at 9:39 AM, scotch-irish-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > >> >> >> Today's Topics: >> >> 1. Re: DNA Made Simple (john.hume) >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:39:05 -0000 >> From: "john.hume" <john.hume@ntlworld.com> >> Subject: Re: [S-I] DNA Made Simple >> To: <scotch-irish@rootsweb.com> >> Message-ID: <8ABED21AA179428687D830F272431AE5@GRUMPYPC> >> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; >> reply-type=original >> >> Hi Linda, >> >> Sorry I didn't send my condolences over your father's death, I must >> have >> missed that message. I lost my own father 3 years this Christmas >> Eve, he was >> 92 and as he served 12 years in the army and was in the Burmese jungle >> fighting the Japanese, I suppose we are lucky to have had him that >> long. >> As for cats, what can I say, our six month old moggie, jumped off >> the hedge, >> cracked her jaw straight in halve as she landed on a brick edge. >> Result over >> ?1,000 in vets fees. She was too young and too nice to be put down, >> now I've >> taken out pet insurance. >> Going back to WDYTYA, our programme is 1 hour long, and as on the >> BBC there >> are no commercial adverts. The USA ones are shown on the BBC >> channels and no >> adverts either but still only 30 minutes long, so I don't think the >> people >> over there are getting their money's worth. Do you have the voice of >> Mark >> Strong as the narrator. ?. Last week's 'celebrity' was an American >> comedienne, her family had originated from County Kildare in >> Ireland, a >> great shame they only spent about 5 minutes in that country before >> she and >> her brother retired to the pub. I certainly agree with the words OMG >> and >> WOW, my problem of late is trying to decipher what some Americans are >> actually saying.Films in particular are becoming very difficult to >> understand, and there was silly me thinking that we all spoke English. >> >> I've had some interesting e-mails from over your way regarding the >> family >> of Conway and Hume in and around the 1650's. So it's always nice to >> keep >> plodding away, hoping eventually something comes up. >> 2013 is a big year, 500 years since the Battle of Flodden, quite an >> event >> for the HUME family. I hope that you or someone, has this event in >> mind >> ready to publish details when they become available >> >> Thanks for your time >> regards >> John Hume > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SCOTCH-IRISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message