Oh, you are a luck woman, Viola! Truly, a lucky woman... My Shaws think they came over on the Goodspeed, the 2nd ship after the Mayflower (and even call themsilfs "Enlgish" until they started calling themsilfs "Yankees" -- I would imagine as in New England Yankees...) I found the Shaw closest to me goin' back and bein' from elsewhere as ACTCHERLY originatin' in County Down, Ireland -- sometime after ca. 1850 ['zact date not yet acertained] -- So, Ooops. Guess didn't make enough good speed tryin' to make the last call for the Goodspeed....) He (and many like 'em) always considered 'imself "Scottish" -- actually, he said "Scots" or even "Scotch" as he believed he wuz descended from [what I would call] Cromwell's Northern-Britain hordes -- sent over to "rule" ol' Irelan' by Anglicization linguistic and religious... They still do be folk who'd've been callin' 'im "Scots-Irish" and even others who'd call 'im "Anglo-Irish"... [I suspect it 'pends on whether or not he got a title AND wore shoes or not... or how long ago it had been since his kin had fallen from the Gaelic...] OK. But we must remember that the Scots are an Irish tribe (most of which) that moved across the waters to NE England, the Isles and SW corner of Scotland at least several times in the past few millenia... Helpin' the whole shebang are a few curious facts: A good number of these "Scots" on certain isles and in the SW of Scotland continue to speak good "Scots Gaelic" but call it "Gaidhlig" [officially in their mellifluous tongue] but -- "Erse." casually.... Gee... I wonder what THAT means? AND we mustn't forget that the language made more famous and familiar to world by the poet Bobbie Burns is (depending on your sources) a variant or dialect of English. Naturally, this English "language" is called "Scots." After all of that -- which I even think I sorta understand -- you might better sympathize as I confess that I go to bed every night full of fear that I shall find out tomorrow that "Shaw" is actually a Chinese name (I DO have an Uncle Richard) or the mutated, shortened form of some Slavic moniker like "Shawinenski " or "Shawellovich" and has NOTHING to do with Gaels and the Celts of Ireland, Scotland, South Boston and the Maritimes... :^) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Viola Seward" <olla@i29.net> To: <SHAW-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, 18 April, 2001 12:12 Subject: [SHAW] Shaw Families From Different Countries!!! > Hello Shaw family listers. You know when we have family that comes from > say Ireland. Our first thought is they are Irish. But thats wrong!! You > see my gggrandfather and family came to America from Ireland. But left > England to go to Ireland. Glad i knew my Shaws were English or i may > have searched Ireland. Then had some one found my actual family i would > have denied them because mine came from Ireland. Making them Irish. So a > lot of twists and turns but families moved back then just like they do > today. > Good luck. > Viola. > > > ==== SHAW Mailing List ==== > http://www.pivot.net/%7eeureka/index.html > http://www.rootsweb.com/~onlanark/