That's a tough one. I know my Wests are Scotch-Irish because my grandmother told me so, and my mother's cousins say their mothers (my grandmother's sisters) told them the same thing (I haven't tracked back to the original immigrant yet). When I found some distant connections, they all claimed to be Scotch-Irish as well. I don't know how you'd find that out if you didn't have an oral history to start with. I can tell you most Scotch-Irish were Protestant, and most of them came to North America in the mid-1700s. I have a little more about the Scotch-Irish on one of my web pages: http://www.theshop.net/missbev/family/Scotch-Irish.html and I have what I know of my West family ancestry on this page: http://www.theshop.net/missbev/family/Wests2.html Good luck. Beverly >Date: Tue, 08 Dec 1998 13:40:10 -0800 >From: "Paul W. West" <paulwest@uswest.net> >To: WEST-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: [WEST-L] Re: Irish Wests > >Beverly: > >Thanks for your reply. Do you have any idea of how to research these Irish Wests? >If my line goes through them, rather than through the Lords de la Warr, how can I >find out? > >Thanks, Paul > > >Beverly Wrote: > >> Paul, my West family came from South Carolina. My family tradition never >> mentioned any royalty, but did say the family was Scotch-Irish, ethnic >> lowlander Scots from what is now Northern Ireland. >> >> Beverly >> missbev@theshop.net