Assumptions of Ancestry

 

We all really want to believe we are descended from greatness or at least that our ancestors were pure, with well developed moral ethics that does not exist in today's world. 

Yet somehow every family manages to have skeletons in the closet. Of course we attempt to say these are recent issues that did not exist in yesteryear.

To start with, if you think Scotch-Irish, means part Irish and part Scotch... not so fast. Who were the Scotch Irish ethnically? While the link mentions Ulster Scots, as they seem to be know in certain parts of the world (Northern Ireland), it probably is better to think of them as protestant. And yes, they settled in the colonies, most notably in the south. You should also remember that for all practical purposes... they spoke English. 

Also, think in terms of today as Northern Ireland and Ireland as two separate entities. Ireland was mostly Catholic, did not speak English. While there were Catholics in the colonies, they number something like 20K.

The Ulster Scots were generally from the lowlands of Scotland and did not particularly mingle with Catholics, nor care much for them. That feeling was mutual. They fought wars of religion, which is kind of odd, as the Scots, Irish, English, Normans, Vikings, etc. spent hundreds of years invading each other and... you can imagine the rest. 

It was the Romans that labeled the inhabitants of Ireland as Scots. Which then migrated to Scotland and many were sent back to Northern Ireland. 

There is a whole history of who are Scots, Scotch, Scotsmen, Scots Irish, Ulster Scot, etc. Apparently people in Scotland get ruffled, if you refer to them as "Scotch".

Needless to say, the family trees of all these folks are fairly knotted, in my opinion. So they couldn't use skin color, hair color, eye color or anything else to distinguish good from bad, so off to war over beliefs. 

The potato famine in Ireland occurred in the 19th century and mostly affected the city dwellers that did not speak English, had limited education and limited skills of value for the new land. These Irish were not very welcome in the new land. 

I should briefly touch on the propensity of Europe to fight wars over religion for long periods of time. It seems the plague created a great breakdown in society as that society rebelled against the morals as presented by the Catholic Church in far off Rome. The tithes and offerings demanded by the church with no respite in reducing the plague, called more than a few to question the role of the church. 

Here is a touching read about the morals of our ancestors during this period. You look around and can easily wonder if we are heading right back to that unrest. 

In any case the Catholic church violently seized the day and lay waste to any other religions. We were taught about the Spanish Inquisition and the horrors of that, but are never taught the greater horrors of the French Inquisition. I figure it had something to do with over 8,000 French troops at Yorktown and dozens of French ships offshore. (psst... the British would not have surrendered at Yorktown without the French making up over half the boots on the ground).

The French were more terrible than what is listed in this link. The French went so far as to empty the prisons and have the prisoners live with Huguenot families as the overlord of the house, with all the evil that can be imagined. 

This was not just a French phenomenon, as this type of behavior was throughout what is now Northern mainland Europe. There are numerous books on this matter, but it is rarely discussed in polite company.

Now that we have established the horrors of the people and why they fled to various countries seeking safety... and then many turned to crossing the Atlantic, which was also full of peril, as well as the manner of booking passage.

There were the indentured servants (slavery) that made the passage and served for their period of indenture... often under very harsh conditions. Then there was the matter of treatment of women on the voyages. Often times food and water was in short supply, so a barter system was commonplace. Let your imagination run with that. Women were not considered as equal to men, so take it for what it is worth.

I guess the point of all this, is to remind us that GGGGGrandfather might not have been the biological father of GGGGrandfather. Oh what a twisted tree.

So many skeletons and very difficult to truly know ancestry. Which should be no surprise, when a DNA test indicates something other than what you were brought up to believe.

BUT... there are numerous things we were taught or led to believe that do not adhere to the reality of history. Yet we adamantly state that our version of our history is true, and anything different is simply revisionist history. 

It is probably a case of this...

via GIPHY

Additional Sources:

• The Norman Conquest
• The Viking Age in the British Isles
• The Black Death
• Who exactly were the Scotch Irish
• THE HISTORICAL USE OF THE TERM “SCOTCH-IRISH”
• The Huguenots -  England's First Refugees
• History of the French Huguenots
• Indentured Servants
• Crossing the Atlantic
• Gottlieb Mittelberger, Journey to Pennsylvania (1750)

There is an abundance of literature on the internet and in a decent library to research. To assert your history is somehow different ignores the reality and suggests you can't handle the truth.