Scotch-Irish?

[jimrtex]

My point is that your average White American probably has ancestors from as many countries as he/she has fingers.

I doubt that this is true except for coal miners who lost a hand in a mining accident.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

At the time most of these people emigrated (the 1700's and early 1800's) there wasn't really a singular "English" identity

Yes there was. In fact there was much more of one than a French identity in France, a German identity in the German states, etc.

Of course Englishness differed (and differs) in different parts of England, but it is a big country (population-wise at least) and that kind of thing is absolutely normal. Of course it can also be true of very small countries, as in Wales.

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No, they most certainly did regard themselves as English and did so every bit as much as people further south. The Venerable Bede was a Northumbrian you know.

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The Border was (and is) lightly populated and there isn't much in the way of settlement continuity around it (Berwick-upon-Tweed is like the only significant exception). You cross the border and the accents change pretty much automatically. Quite different from the Anglo-Welsh border which is 'deep' and very porous. Cumberland is very English, Dumfriesshire is very Scottish.

There was clearly a lot of migration from Cumberland, and many families with branches on both sides of the English-Scottish border (Taylor, Graham, Jackson, etc).  Wasn't the relative emptiness you speak of in terms of the border due to a large degree to the actions of the Crown to pacify the region in the 17th and 18th century?

[patrick1]

And yes I do think that there is a level of Anglophobia that stretches back in this country to the Revolution.

Overstating the case. More like going back to election day 1960. (As the tipping point when people went from being proud of to embarrassed by English ancestry).

But English ancestry was more common in the South in 1980 than anything else.  The only counties in the US where majorities said they were only English that year were in Eastern Kentucky.

Just as people don't want to claim English ancestry because of negative stereotypes about "WASPs," so also many people would much sooner claim Englishness and be a WASP than be Scots-Irish and a "hillbilly."

Not really, the easiest way for various political parties to win votes was to whip up some anglophobia. It was one of the few things nativist and say the Irish could find common cause on (that and treating the Chinese, Indians and Blacks poorly) 
You had actual shooting wars, skirmishes, boundary disputes, support of the Confederacy et al. Our foreign policy was also designed to contain British/read- English interests.  It wasnt just Germans and Irish who wanted no business helping the British in WWI.

[King of Kensington]

In 1980 English was more common than Irish (mostly Irish Protestant) ancestry in every Southern state.  For selected states:

Alabama

English  1,140,000  29.3%
Irish  633,000  16.2%

Arkansas

English  632,000  27.7%
Irish  475,000  20.8%

Georgia

English  1,584,000  29%
Irish  849,000  15.5%

Kentucky

English  1,267,000  34.6%
Irish  673,000  18.4%

Mississippi

English  656,000  26%
Irish  408,000  16.2%

North Carolina

English  1,778,000  30.3%
Irish  872,000  14.8%

South Carolina

English  803,000  25.7%
Irish  485,000  15.5%

Tennessee

English  1,435,000  31.3%
Irish  851,000  18.5%

Virginia

English  1,696,000  31.7%
Irish  849,000  15.9%

https://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/files/pc80-s1-10/tab04.pdf

[RINO Tom]

So I've been making a spreadsheet of the ancestry demographics of each state, and so far I have been combining "American" and English because of my very same suspicion that English ancestry is under-reported.  Is there a better suggested method that you guys think would be more accurate (because I now fear that I am almost entirely eliminating "Scotch-Irish").

I am also dividing the stated percentages by the total population and then dividing that number by the White population of each state, because I would be much more interested to know what percentage of White people are of each European ancestry (obviously MOST minorities are not going to be of majority European ancestry, LOL).

[King of Kensington]

So I've been making a spreadsheet of the ancestry demographics of each state, and so far I have been combining "American" and English because of my very same suspicion that English ancestry is under-reported.  Is there a better suggested method that you guys think would be more accurate (because I now fear that I am almost entirely eliminating "Scotch-Irish").

I think that assumption is correct.  "American" ancestry is most common in places that saw a huge drop in English ancestry responses.

I'm quite confident the vast majority of those respondents are mostly or at least some English ancestry and there would be no overlap because American is a single response only. 

[jimrtex]

Most people who have lineage that extends as far back as the Scotch Irish emigration will be a hodgepodge of Scottish, Ulster, Irish, English Welsh etc.

And yes I do think that there is a level of Anglophobia that stretches back in this country to the Revolution.  Hence in the south, you will see more identifying as plan American or Scotch Irish and the phenomenon of seemingly everyone claiming some Native American ancestry.

Not necessarily Anglophobia, but promotion of an American identity district from that of the English. For example, Washington Irving promoted the idea that the Spaniard Cristoforo Colombo, rather than the Englishman Giovanni Caboto was the discover of North America, even though it was Cabot's first voyage that is the basis of English territorial claims.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Prior to this, they were English living in America. After that, they were Americans.

The census did not start asking question about ancestry until the mid-20th Century, when fewer and fewer Americans could cite a foreign birth. The Census used "foreign stock" to refer to first and second generation immigrants. People might not have made note of their family lineage, particularly when living grandparents were not as common. If a child asks a grandparent about how things were when they were young, they might not recount what their grandfather had done.

So when the census started asking ancestry questions, people might be making something up. If they had an immigrant ancestor from the mid-to-late 19th century they might use that.

[jimrtex]

No, they most certainly did regard themselves as English and did so every bit as much as people further south. The Venerable Bede was a Northumbrian you know.

He lived on the coast. Northumbria went up to the Firth of Forth, but how much penetration was there of the Pennines?

[jimrtex]

The northwest of England was less influenced by the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions, and so they would be more likely to identify with Scots, ignoring that there were Saxon kingdoms in Scotland.

...

Words fail.

No one outside Scotland would have identified themselves as Scots or Scottish or whatever. No one. Largely because they, you know, were not Scottish. In any case to most people in Northern England the Scots were a bunch of barely civilised nuisance neighbours who invaded every now and again, caused a mess, and buggered off home once they'd lost/run of supplies/etc...

Identify with the Scottish. How many people who live in Cumberland or Lancashire support Chelsea?

If you were an indentured servant who went inland after working off your service, your attitude toward the poofs along the coast would be similar to that of northwest England towards the poofs in the Home Counties.

The presidents from Tennessee all had (or may have had) Scottish or Ulster Scots background. Andrew Jackson's parents were from Carrickfergus. James Knox Polk's, maternal great-grandparents (last name Knox) were from Renfrewshire and Coleraine. There is uncertainty of Andrew Johnson's ancestry, with various possibilities of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There was clearly a lot of migration from Cumberland, and many families with branches on both sides of the English-Scottish border (Taylor, Graham, Jackson, etc).

The thing about common surnames is that not everyone who has them is related. Not that there's never been a degree of back-and-forth but it was never really that sort of border in general. Probably its historic status as 'terrible no mans land don't go there' contributed to this. As did the tendency of some of the 'trouble' the region saw to take on a blatant ethnic character on occasion.

And the critical point here is by the 17th/18th century; sure if you go a very long way back you'd likely find common ancestry in the region and all that, but that's kind of beyond irrelevant to how people thought of themselves (and literally what they were in terms of culture and religion and so on) centuries later.

Though of those you've listed, Taylor isn't a Border surname at all (its an occupational surname - so to an extent you'll get it everywhere but only to an extent - historically most common in Lancashire and the Midlands and also Scotland north of the Forth) and Jackson is rare north of it.

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Cart before horse: it was a comparatively lawless region (though less than 19th century sentimental narratives suggest) precisely because it was lightly populated and a long way away from any major population centres. Apart from a couple of river valleys its basically all utterly unproductive upland, not capable of supporting much in the way of population. You had a couple of large towns, but Carlisle was very English and Dumfries very Scottish; Berwick is/was the only one where identity issues would have been particularly complex. Note also that only part of Cumberland is Border; the towns on the west coast actually had better links with Ireland than with Scotland.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He lived on the coast. Northumbria went up to the Firth of Forth, but how much penetration was there of the Pennines?

Its an upland region, most people have always lived in the river valleys or on the coast. I don't think settlement of the North Pennines extended much beyond Stanhope (still doesn't, come to think of it) which was a lead mining centre from way back when. But the Wear Valley was densely population (by the standards of the time) throughout the period and of course that extends a long way into the North Pennines. In the centuries after Bede you have the foundation of Durham City (very, very English) which was the centre of political power in the region until the 1830s. Similar story as regards the Tyne; Hexham Abbey was an important religious centre (with royal burials etc) from the 7th century and thats a long way up the valley.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Identify with the Scottish. How many people who live in Cumberland or Lancashire support Chelsea?

More than support Celtic or Rangers.

[Gass3268]

So I've been making a spreadsheet of the ancestry demographics of each state, and so far I have been combining "American" and English because of my very same suspicion that English ancestry is under-reported.  Is there a better suggested method that you guys think would be more accurate (because I now fear that I am almost entirely eliminating "Scotch-Irish").

I am also dividing the stated percentages by the total population and then dividing that number by the White population of each state, because I would be much more interested to know what percentage of White people are of each European ancestry (obviously MOST minorities are not going to be of majority European ancestry, LOL).

Very interested to see how this turns out.

[King of Kensington]

There were something like 4.5 million Irish immigrants to the US in the 19th century, the majority (but no hard data) being Catholic. But surely at least 500,000 of these were Irish Protestants - not necessarily Ulster Scots - plus many would have come from Canada as well.  But for some reason the story of Irish Protestant immigration stops in 1800.  I guess they melted in so quickly and didn't settle anywhere in particular so they weren't really noticed.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

There were something like 4.5 million Irish immigrants to the US in the 19th century, the majority (but no hard data) being Catholic. But surely at least 500,000 of these were Irish Protestants - not necessarily Ulster Scots - plus many would have come from Canada as well.  But for some reason the story of Irish Protestant immigration stops in 1800.  I guess they melted in so quickly and didn't settle anywhere in particular so they weren't really noticed.

Same thing happened with Irish Protestants everywhere they went in the Anglophone settler colonies - who speaks of "Irish Anglicans" in Ontario today? Even there it is assumed Irish = Catholic.

[King of Kensington]

Largest cities for birth or parentage in Northern Ireland, 1930 (Irish Free Republic in brackets):

NYC  77,972 (535,034)
Philadelphia  69,104 (115,252)
Chicago  23,987 (169,568)
Boston  19,265 (140,083)
Pittsburgh  15,716 (31,110)

Of course we don't how many are Anglo-Irish, Ulster Scots or Catholics.

One Irish American historian (Doyle) said 10% of Famine and post-Famine immigrants were Catholic, another (Miller) estimates around 20%.  I'm inclined to say it's closer to the latter.

I also read that there were about 50,000 Irish-born Protestants in NYC in 1860, about 20% or so.  If I take a wild guess and say two-thirds of Northern Irish and 10% of those from the Republic were Protestant, in NYC it came to 17% which is pretty close. 

This also seems to confirm that Pennsylvania attracted a lot of Irish Protestant immigrants.

[jimrtex]

One Irish American historian (Doyle) said 10% of Famine and post-Famine immigrants were Catholic, another (Miller) estimates around 20%.  I'm inclined to say it's closer to the latter.

Is this reversed?

[King of Kensington]

Yes, should read 80-90% Catholic.

[King of Kensington]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_McWhiney

[jimrtex]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grady_McWhiney

A Celtic heritage for the Upland South would not be attributed to the Southern planter class - but rather to distinguish themselves from it. Similarly, former indentured servants, who moved west where they could own land, might have a folk memory of being treated as slaves by the Anglican planters.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Pseudo-history at its most cringeworthy right there.

[afleitch]

I'll need about two hours to pick through the wreckage.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll need about two hours to pick through the wreckage.

I just want to highlight this thing about 'warlike' 'Celtic' peoples and 'peaceful' Anglo-Saxons and contrast it with the actual known history of the early Middle Ages...

[King of Kensington]

Pseudo-history at its most cringeworthy right there.

I blame Mel Gibson and Jim Webb for popularizing this idea. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Its actually kind of fascinating...