Hi Rita, Ireland is a land of immigrants. As far back as we have records, people were coming there. The Normans came and brought over their Welsh settlers. You can see Scotland from many places in the coastline. You can see England further south, high above Drogheda, where parts of Edward the Bruce are buried in Louth (his head was lugged off to London). You can see see Wales further south. People went back and forth in boats all the time. Once people had surnames, they took their surnames with them. In addition there were major migrations, several Elizabethan colonies in Munster that established large numbers of English surnames there. Earlier, Irish living in the Pale were required to take English style surnames (so everything with an English surname is not English). Then Cromwell settled his English army in Ireland in the 1650s. In the 1500s and 1600s various groups of dispossed Continental Protestants were settled in Ireland: German, French, Fleming, etc. The surname ADDISON is not common in Ulster. How do I know that? I checked it in Bell "Book of Ulster Surnames". It's not in "The Surnames of Ireland". It IS in IGI. You know to check IGI? www.familysearch.org. That's the start of all our searches. It's not surprising that it is there in small numbers, after all, anyone named Addison from England or Scotland could have come to Ireland at any time. GOTT is German. That doeesn't mean your people didn't come from Ireland. There were plenty of Germans there, but not large colonies in Ulster. The first thing you must do when moving to a new country is learn about doing genealogy in that country. If you take a beginning Irish genealogy class you will be told that it is almost impossible to trace average people (non nobility) before about 1820 when church records begin to become available. If you haven't heard that yet, it's a sign you need to do some study of Irish genealogy. However it is not entirely true. The majority of Irish people were landless Catholics who also do not appear in muster lists and the other types of records we have in the 1700s and earlier. So it can be possible to trace Protestants if you learn how to do it. If we could tell you all you needed to know in an email, we'd all be on the Scottish email lists, not Ulster <grin>! It's hard. The impossible takes a little longer and requires more effort. For us that effort is learning. If you check the archives you'll find a huge number of posts in the last week that name the books, etc, that you need to check. Things like Ryan "Irish Records" that will identify the most obvious sources for Londonderry. The thing you must realize is that there are not likely to be any birth records. There are some for the Derry Cathedral from the 1600s. They are published. You can find them in LDS or a library or you can hire someone to check them for you. Because GOTT is German and Addison is lord knows, perhaps you will find them in the CHurch of Ireland records. IGI does find a couple GOTTs in Ulster: Fermanagh and Inniskillen. If this were my problem I'd spend lots of time poking around on the internet as there are many things on line. The ultimate book is "Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research" It can help you execute standard Irish strategies that will result in success. Without learning these you will not succeed because the record situation is extremely different from America. As I learned from one of the experts in Salt Lake, with Irish genealogy you MUST spend one third of your time learning what records exist, one third figuring out how to get them, and only one third actually viewing records. Poeple expect to get stuff off the Internet instantly. These people will not find their Irish ancestors because they're not prepared to do Irish research. If your ancestors married in Ireland, you can execute a strategy of gathering easy to get records and determining if there is a place where both GOTT and ADDISON occur, then going into more deep research in that area. Since neither is a very common name, this might yield up some results. I would think any instance of GOTT should be of interest to you. Best of lluck! Linda Merle -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Rita Hawthorne" <rhawthorne@cox.net> > I don't recall if I have posted this to list or not. My ancestors names are > Addison and Gott. His is Addison and hers is Gott. To my understanding, they > are Scotch-Irish, who came from Scotland? or Ireland? > > They immigrated to Londonderry, New Hampshire in 1751 and then on to Goffstown, > New Hampshire. I have found their grave stones and have a photo. He was a > constable there. The lived southern side of the Piscataqua River. In the > Goffstown History books, I understand that almost all of the residents south of > the river were Scotch-Irish. > > How can I find this out for sure? I only have their year of birth, but have the > exact date of death. Any help will be appreciated. I really need more > information. > > Thanks, > > Rita >