Thanks to the Rev. Andrews for giving us the overview of to-ing and fro-ing over the Irish Sea. One thing I might add here is that every year many Irish went to Scotland to work on the farms. They would put in tatties before leaving and harvest them in the fall when they returned. The transport they took every year was apparently from small ports close to themselves. They had little cash and no way to travel to any larger ports. Every year it is estimated that 10% stayed. You do the math .... clearly there is a lot of Irish in Scotland. These people assimilated into the Scottish population with the rapidity that Europeans coming to America assimilated: the first generation had a funny accent, funny habits, and funny last names, but their children were natives and often divested themselves of the funny names and the funny habits. The front essay in Black "Surnames of Scotland" gives some examples of surname changes among IRish immigrants to Scotland. Usually itinerant farm laborers were Catholic, but there was no law to keep poor Protestants from doing the same. Some of the Ordinance Survey Memoirs, written in the 1830s, detail Scottish seasonal emigration from the parish and even give names. During the early 1600s when times were very bad in Ireland especially for Irish Catholics, Parliament in England made many complaints about the large numbers of indigent Irish who left Ireland and were itinerating through England (and no doubt Scotland) looking for work. Many of these people assimilated. I have another book that describes a community in rural England in the early Victorian age. The farms were regularly serviced by groups of Irish laborers who returned every year to the same farms. The upshot is we must divest ourselves of a notion that there were these three countries where from time immemorial, as if rooted in some hillside, our ancestors lived till one day they left somehow. Nooooo....our ancestors moved about, often in response to political and economic conditions. The seas were the super highways and offered opportunity rather than being a barrier. As we learn when we do our DNA studies -- they often got around. When the day of surnames, imposed by the British Gov, arrived, they continued, adopting new ones at will. REgarding Ireland -- from the 1400s at least many Scots-Norse men from the western islands went to Ireland as galloglass soldiers ('galloglass' is Anglicized Irish for foreign soldier'). They were the sherman tanks of their day. Esp. in the 1500s large numbers served under the Irish lords -- and some for the English as well. They often were rewarded by land and women. Several northern Irish clans were started by Galloglass, including the McSweenies. So.... many a proud Irishman is a wee bit Scottish. IN any case these men were Catholic, if Christian at all. They intermarried with the Irish, bringing Scottish surnames to all the counties of Ireland. You can read "Scots Mercenary Soldiers" to learn more about these men. The ENglish established a number of colonies in Ireland in the Elizabethan age. Cork was largely uninhabited after 90% of the people there died after the feuding Irish lords and England killed off their cattle during the Desmond Wars (I think it was) in the 1500s. It's probalby the greatest atrocity of Irish history. In any case, several colonies of English were established there. They assimilated into IRish -- their grandchildren were transported to the west of Ireland by Cromwell. They had become Catholic and Irish speaking by the early 1600s. SOme have commented that the blood types in the SW of Ireland are very English and suggested it was due to english soldiers garrisoned there. More likely it's the blood of English colonists. In America and other lands, our ancestors were quick to move and so they settled a continent. They didn't learn this on the crossing. It was a habit they had always had even before they first came to Scotland as Angles or from Ireland as Scotti or.... from hopped off the ark as Picts and Irish. My ex's DUNCAN line (Isadora Duncan) left Queens Ferry, Scotland in the early 1700s for Donegal, left Donegal for Philadelphia in the 1770s, left Philly for VA, returned to PHilly, went to Indiana and then New Orleans briefly in 1850. Took the boat to San Francisco for the GOld Rush where Isadora was born. Her father (b. Philly, l. VA, then New Orleans, San Francisco, LA) died in a ship wreck off the Welsh coast. Isadora of course lived in New York, Germany, Russia, Paris, and died in the south of France. She left no descendents, but the descendents of her equally foot loose brother, returned to America after two generations in Paris in the 1950s, continued to run a cross Atlantic business till recently, crossing the pond every year. My sister in law lived in Geneva for many years but is now in New York. My brother in law has returned to France and lives in Orange. My ex, after living in NY, Arizona, Mexico, West Virginia, (that I am aware of) settled in Massachusetts. A Scotch Irish family! The theatrical side I believe is O'Gorman -- Isadora's mother was an Irish Catholic. She descends from GRAYS who were loyal supporters of the Catholic Church in Kings CO, Ireland and O'Gormans whose flair for the dramatic is very, very much like Isadora's and her brother Raymond. What can you say except that they are Scotch Irish. NOt the type that settled on a farm in Appalachia and lived there for 3 generations like my mother's family, when has itself sent off sprigs to as far away as Australia, Canada of course, and Mexico, but the kind that got LOTS of footloose genes --- and talent from the Irish side. Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net