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