Hi, Billy White Bolton, I saw your post on the white rootsweb bulletin board. I believe I'm correct in noting that although the potato, which originated in the South American Andes, was known in Ireland (perhaps from Sir Walter Raleigh's plantation there), the tubers apparently weren't a staple food until the 1800s. That said, immigration from a island not well-endowed with natural resources appears to have been frequent. It is wise to look first in the islands where Columbus first saw landfall, the West Indies, for that was the hub of merchant activity in the early 1700s between Western Europeans and the U. S. colonies (Alexander Hamilton, for example, was from Scots merchant stock in St. Croix). Note also that emigrants from County Mayo in the early 1700s settled in Jamaica and Monserrat. The same is true for the so-called Ulster-Scots (the northern Ireland province) who immigrated to the Danish West Indies and/or America in the early 1700s. The Irish were also prevalent in Newfoundland beginning in the early 1500s. Cheers everyone from a sunny NC Laura On Nov 25, 2006, at 1:01 AM, white-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > Bob White, > The great potato famine occurred in Ireland in 1845-1849. Was > there another > one in the 1700's? > Billy White Bolton