Another very useful book on the public plantation of Ulster (not Down and Antrim) that describes very very clearly how the land was appropriated according to English law is the following book. It's very readible to the non expert. The reason the process had to be legal was that from the point of view of the Crown, Ireland was part of its territory and the folks involved, both those gaining land and those losing it, would leave progeny who would sue through the courts to regain land (or sieze more) if anything remotely illegal could be found by a lawyer. This did happen a lot. Why do we care? Because it generated legal documents that contain names of the people involved. The book is Cyril Falls "The Birth of Ulster" (do a google for the publisher). The populist Irish versions of the plantation are good at fomenting division and hatred and clearly capture the hatred of the dispossessed Irish. However the other side of the story must be understood for those attempting to trace Ulster Scots or other "British" (ie trusted Protestants) as these documents may name the ancestor or the family of the ancestor. So it's well worth our effort to become familiar with the other side of the story. Cyril Falls wrote some other books as well. All are a dang good and informative read. If that's all you do with them, though, you've screwed up. They got bibliographies in the back that identify the sources of his info. He didn't copy out the names of non important characters. Maybe your ancestor's name is there. Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net