The season of my Mother is approaching. She was born just two days shy of St Valentine’s Day. For as many times as I forgot that when she was here with us, that never happens now that she doesn’t hear me in the same way. Still, I hear her more now than I ever did before.

Upon finding a close y-DNA match, the next step was to see how far back we could compare lines. Basing comparisons on the first twenty-five [25] markers there were three of us in the OLIVER y-DNA project with identically matched markers. Two of us were searching for roots in the same locales – Christian County, Kentucky in the early years of the 19th century and Johnson County, Illinois from about 1840. The third person we matched to didn’t have an ancestor in this country until after the Civil War. This told all of us that our common ancestor was further back than I had hoped. In other words, though this person knew well her linage back into the 1600s, it didn’t do either of us two who were only back to the Revolutionary War.

So – who was our immigrant ancestor? We are now sure that we are Ulster Irish [Scots-Irish as some say]. What do we know so far then? What is an Ulster-Irishman? Who were they? The bulk of the Ulster-Irish immigration occurred from about 1710 to 1770. They were, at the least, the bulk of 200,000 to half million immigrants from Ulster to America in the six or so decades preceding the War for Independence. They were mostly Presbyterians. They were Lowland Scots, sometimes mixed with the Northern English, the Irish, and some few Huguenots. They had spent from a generation to more than a century in Ireland. They were the “nonconformists” – so aptly named.

Historically, they were thin soil farmers and fighters, shaped by centuries in southern Scotland between the English to the south and the Highland Scots to the north. A century in Ireland hardened and sentimentalized them – still they didn’t belong in either the culture they left nor the culture they joined.

For more than forty [40] years I have been a family historian-genealogist – the quest that my Mother sent me to pursue. Either she knew something about me that no one else knew or ...... no, Mother’s know things no one else does. Thus, recently I have concluded that she did indeed know something that I, myself didn’t know. I am more Scots-Irish that ever I would believe; I can’t help myself – it is in the blood! The Scots-Irish or Ulster-Irish do not seem to refer to themselves as such. Numbered among them is General Patton, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Lewis and Clark, Sam Houston, Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S Grant, Audie Murphy, Bill Clinton, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, even Ronald Reagan, and certainly Old Hickory himself, Andrew Jackson. But, then so was Senator John C Calhoun who just might be tagged with being the first spokesperson for separation from the Federal Government.

On the other side of the coin, as an ethnic entity they seem to be the most ardent genealogists.

This may at first seem questionable, but the paradox is well founded. For millennia, in Scotland, strong family pride and family/clan patriotism [not nationalism] was taught and encouraged from every aspect.

Another paradox characteristic of Scots are their group prejudices and fiercely held internal codes. Yet – they are an embracive people, focused on family loyalty and personal honor, yet acceptive of any who come from outside the group and marry into the “family”. Local or community -- not national -- and personal loyalties drive their passions more intensely than any larger ethnic differences.

This family loyalty and personal honor concept carried into their migrations. They did not migrate as a single family, but in groups of family. Their migrations were like spokes of a wheel and at the rim they were connected to the hub. This intensely held concept is a genealogist’s research clue. For Ulster Irish genealogy in this country knowing that they didn’t migrate individually, but in family groups allows us to look then wherever we find like surnames together. In America, this concept of the Clan grew stronger rather than being diluted by time and assimilation. Thus, the study of any member of a family is to uncover the history of the people, or the study of the people is to uncover the history of the individual family.

This hub and spoke analogy of migration really fits in the American southern “highlands”, which extends 800 miles from Pennsylvania to Georgia. This cultural hegemony far outweighed by far their numbers in the population. In this stretch of highlands, they were called the “borderers” and they were at home in these fringe frontier communities. This suited their family living style, their warrior ethic, their farming and herding livelihood, their attitudes toward land, wealth, power and government. They were so homogeneous of these border cultural attitudes that other cultures and ethnic groups tended to copy them. They were unafraid of higher authority or government and said so! Personal honor they held high and were quick to defend against any attack – personal or community. They were deeply patriotic. They shunned wealth yet were populist. Boldness and leadership were the measure of the man, not wealth or amount of land/property. These “borderers” were adamantly independent. Often we heard from the elders, “Poor but Proud.”

The insistence on the dignity of the individual regardless of place or rank in society made the Scots Irish stand out in the crowd. There was an infectious egalitarian attitude which bound these people together. Simply put, these characteristics would be devalued as other peoples and cultures would measure influence and power through property and wealth. Eventually wealth becomes the single power.

As much as I take pride in my Father’s blood heritage – that being primarily Scots-Irish – the decline of the culture begins with the cavalier attitude of ignoring what happens to whole groups of peoples of other cultures.

So, Mother Dear, I know where my Democratic leanings come from – I know where my intense loyalties come from – I know where my sense of [in]justice comes from – I know why my temper rises – but, Mother, I know also that your Highland Scots temperament is also in me – just as clannish yet a bit milder, a bit gentler and with a dry calculating humor. Yes, Mother, I see that knowing, understanding twinkle in your eye. Celtic, one and all.

e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-WI nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da.
(May you walk in peace and harmony)

Wado,

Bill

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