Are Scots-Irish Americans Really Different from Irish Americans?

Are Scots-Irish Americans Really Different from Irish Americans? Two honest answers, pointing opposite ways. Historically, completely different peoples — Lowland Scots from Ayrshire and Wigtownshire, planted in Ulster from 1606, Presbyterian, in America from 1718 and down the Great Wagon Road into the mountains. Genetically, no. The two populations sit closer together than Cornwall and Devon, the testing companies have merged them into one region, and when 774,000 American genomes were clustered the result had an Irish cluster, an Appalachian cluster, and no Scots-Irish cluster at all. This video shows where that line sits, why your test keeps returning Scotland you cannot explain, and the three things on paper that still tell the two apart. CHAPTERS 00:00 A Maryland courtroom, 1689 01:38 The plantation begins, 1606 02:45 Not Highlanders. Ayrshire and Wigtownshire. 03:22 The Border reiver story is wrong 05:04 Five ships to Boston, 1718 05:55 Why they left: rents, not persecution 06:36 The Great Wagon Road 07:17 The plantation is visible in Irish genes 08:24 The trap in the word Ulster 09:20 Cornwall and Devon are further apart 10:23 What your results call the region 11:31 774,000 American genomes 12:30 They left Appalachia instead 13:33 Marker one: religion, and its catch 14:17 Marker two: the Ulster records 15:02 Marker three: why surnames fail 16:32 The Niall of the Nine Hostages marker 17:32 Where the word Scotch-Irish came from 19:04 The identity dissolving in the census 20:04 Putting it back together QUESTIONS THIS VIDEO ANSWERS What is the difference between Scots-Irish and Irish? Why does my DNA test say Scotland when my family is Irish? Can a DNA test tell Irish from Scottish ancestry? Where in Scotland did the Ulster Scots come from? Why did they leave? How do I prove Scots-Irish ancestry? THE NUMBERS, AND WHERE THEY COME FROM The plantation. Private settlement in Down and Antrim from 1606 under two Ayrshire landowners; the Crown scheme from 1609 across six counties. The 1630 muster rolls list 13,000 British adult males — 3,879 Scottish households against 2,792 English. Antrim was 81 percent Scots, Down 74. Where in Scotland. Overwhelmingly the southwest Lowlands — Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, Wigtownshire, plus Lanarkshire and Dumfriesshire. Not the Highlands. The dialect confirms it: Ulster Scots matches Central and southwest Scots, with almost no Border input. The crossing. 1718, a hundred families on five ships into Boston. 8,000 through Philadelphia after 1725, 70,000 more over the next forty years, another 40,000 before the Revolution. By 1790 one Philadelphian in four was Scots-Irish. In Ireland. The Irish DNA Atlas sorted the island into ten groups. Three sit halfway between Ireland and Britain, carrying a third to sixty percent British ancestry, the mixing dated to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The plantation, still visible. The scale. Cornwall and Devon are as far apart genetically as northern England and Scotland. A 2018 study found a large proportion of people in the north of Ireland have genomes indistinguishable from those sampled in Scotland. One company's region is literally named Central Scotland and Northern Ireland. Ulster ancestry averages five or six percent "Scotland" against nought to two for Connacht or Munster. And 774,000 American genomes produced eighteen clusters with no Scots-Irish group. The census. 5.6 million Americans reported Scotch-Irish ancestry in 1990. 4.3 million in 2000. 3.3 million in 2010. Around 2.5 million today, in a much larger country. Close to 20 million now answer with one word: American. Kentucky, one in five. West Virginia nearly the same, Tennessee and Arkansas behind. Exactly the Wagon Road. THREE MYTHS CORRECTED The Border reivers were not deported to Ulster — about fifty Graham families went to Roscommon in 1606, and that settlement collapsed within two years. Mac and Mc carry no ethnic meaning; the shortening is a scribal habit. And the male-line marker named for Niall of the Nine Hostages predates him by fifteen hundred to three and a half thousand years, which the company selling the test states on its own page. TELL ME YOURS Does your family say Irish or Scots-Irish, and has anyone found the record that settles it? If your results came back with Scotland you could not account for, you now know where to look. If your people were Presbyterian in the backcountry, name the county — somebody reading this is from the next farm over. #ScotsIrish #ScotchIrish #Ulster #Irish #IrishAmerican #Genealogy #FamilyHistory #Ancestry #AmericanHistory #Appalachia #AncestryDNA #Scotland #Ireland #Presbyterian