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Location: Northern Ireland and temporarily England
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Quote:
Originally Posted by snj90
Yes, it's likely an American with English ancestry dating back to the 17th century settlement would have other ancestries as well, but usually closely-related ones (or at least NW European), such as Scottish, Ulster-Scots, maybe a little German and Irish. In the case of the Ulster Scots, they are more commonly (in the US) known as Scotch-Irish, which kind of bolsters the Irish component a bit. Jim Morrison, for example, considered himself an Irish-American, but he really wasn't very Irish at all: Jim Morrison -- he was really more English.
My American relatives do that. They keep calling their relatives Irish and i've told before that they are Ulster Scots not Irish, they won't listen to me.
They have this fantasy that my family are from Galway and that there was a conversation of religion a few hundred years ago. Their/my ancestors are through and through Presbyterian, I have traced them right back to a link in Kirkcudbrightshire in Scotland, they are certainly NOT from Galway!
I've never heard anything like it!! I don't see what's wrong with accepting their identity and putting down scots-irish? They take it so seriously to the point that they nearly tear me up when I say that the family are not Irish even though they're American
True, it's very rare that a specific ancestry group is over 50% of any county. I know some countys in Wisconsin and North Dakota are around 40% German... but still that leaves 60% who are of non-German origin. And those areas are regarded as the most German in the US.
Same with the supposededly Irish dominated areas in the northeast. They are not in the majority, they are just the biggest minority.
Minnesota is an intresting case. It's seen as very Scandinavian... even though German ancestry is more common in that state than Swedish, Norwegian and Danish put together.
I don't think it's coincidence either that Minnesota is considered to have the least corrupt state and local government in the US, or at least way better than NJ, and L'eeziana.
I have a brother-in-law originally from the Irish island of Achill, off the west coast, population 5,000. He tells me that traditionally people from the island, (who are very clanish even by Irish standards), when emigrating to the US, skip Boston, NYC, Philly, east Podunk etc. and still head to Cleveland, because that's where a lots of islanders settled after they finished building the Erie canal. Apparently, to some, it's the only place in the entire US worth emigrating to. Now you know.
The southern Irish have a tendancy to stick together when they immigrate. Northern Irish not so much.
Hey, you are right! They are clannish and stick together. But the Scots Irish aren't that way, that I know of. The southern US has a lot of Scots Irish and in the northeast we have Scots Irish in the state of New Hampshire. Most of them have origins in people who migrated here around 1700.
New Hampshire is known for not wanting laws, like the south. Their motto is Live Free or Die. I had one Scots Irish ancestor a few centuries ago and he was a famous fighter. Slaughtered Native Americans and French in the French and Indian War. Founded a town in New Hampshire called Londonderry. Of course, they started out as mercantile warriers on the English-Scottish border, probably the origin of their rebellious, fighting ways.
It's so funny to me that people from my local area were so influential.
I always assumed it was just English people who had influence.
There's a large new housing development a few miles from me, and all the street/road names are after Irish towns and counties, (southern obviously). It's the developer's prerogative.
That's a valid point you make. Sadly you will probably be ignored.
Oh I'm aware of that. Americans can obviously identify with whatever ancestry they choose. But I'm annoyed by ignorance and when an American say German or Irish ancestry is way more common than English? Yep thats ignorance, and factually incorrect.
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Their/my ancestors are through and through Presbyterian, I have traced them right back to a link in Kirkcudbrightshire in Scotland, they are certainly NOT from Galway!
