Early settlers in America
Early settlers in America
This is a summary of information extracted by Larry Nelson from “A Genealogical and Historical Atlas of the United States of America”. by E. Kay Kirkham,1976. It serves to give an indication where to look for the earliest Scots Irish ancestors.
The term Scots-Irish is used to describe the Scots settled into Northern Ireland in the late 17th and early 18th century. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, they are known as Ulster Scots. There were some 200,000 Scots that were settled into Ireland and from their descendants some 2,000,000 eventually settled in North America.
The Lowland Scots were by and large Protestant (Presbyterians), the Highland Scots were primarily Gaelic speaking and therefore in tension with the Scots of the Central Belt. Irish Catholics and Protestant Irish and Scots were all unable to practice their faiths as they saw fit and were required to pay tithes (taxes) to the Anglican Church.
The main Scots-Irish emigration to the US began around 1714 with the earliest known migration in 1652. Many went to the western counties of Pennsylvania, between the Susquehanna River and the Allegheny Mountains. A large group went down the Shenandoah Valley in 1732. By 1745, the Scots-Irish were 1/4 of the population of PA. That increased to 1/3 of the population by 1770. According to a PBS special on immigrants, Protestant Irish formed 4/5ths of the Pennsylvania Continental line units of the Revolutionary War. It should be noted that these were overwhelmingly Presbyterians from Ulster. The native `Irish` emigrants were a feature of the post Famine period in Ireland in the 1850s.
Delaware
Dutch (1651) [1 settlement]
Scots (1692-1750) [14 settlements] (Census says most were Presbyterians)
Swedes (1627) [1 settlement]
Georgia
English (1751) [1 settlement]
Germans (1732-1757) [2 settlements]
Scots (1732-1798) [20 settlements] (Most were not Highland Scots)
Kentucky
Catholics (1785) [1 settlement]
Presbyterian Scots (1775-1793) [42 settlements]
Massachusetts
English (1630-1660) [3 settlements]
French (1662-1721) [5 settlements]
Irish (1675-1714) [2 settlements] (54 ships)
Scots (1652) [1 settlement]
Scots-Irish (1718-1783) [18 settlements]
Maine
Irish (1735) [1 settlement]
Scots (1736-1785) [13 settlements]
Acadians (1755) [1 settlement]
Maryland
English(1634) [1 settlement]
Swedes (1638) [1 settlement]
Germans (1757) [1 settlement]
Quakers (1660) [1 settlement]
Huguenots (1666) [1 settlement]
Scots-Irish (1720-1788) [20 settlements]
Scots (Presbyterian) (1649-1715) [8 settlements]
New Hampshire
Scots-Irish (1719-1776) [16 settlements]
New Jersey
Dutch (1617) [1 settlement]
Quakers (1676) [2 settlements]
Scots (1700-1775) [60 settlements]
New York
Dutch (1614) [5 settlements]
Scots-Irish (1640-1768) [70 settlements]
Italian (1656) [1 settlement]
Quakers (1657) [3 settlements]
Huguenots (1688) [1 settlement]
Scots (1741-1796) [9 settlements]
Irish (1764) [1 settlement] (300 persons)
North Carolina
Barbadians (1665) [1 settlement]
Quakers (1680) [22 settlements]
Scots (1683) [5 settlements]
Huguenots (1700) [1 settlement]
German (1710) [6 settlements]
Scots-Irish (1719-1800) [67settlements]
Moravians (1753) [1settlement]
Pennsylvania
Quakers (1680) [7 settlements]
Irish (1683) [1 settlement]
Scots-Irish (1698-1800)
[150 settlements] [1745 = 25%, 1770 = 33% of Popn]
Amish (1700) [1 settlement]
Huguenots (1700) [1 settlement]
Germans (1810) [9 settlements]
Rhode Island
French (1686) [1 settlement]
South Carolina
Huguenots (1562) [3 settlements]
Barbadians (1670) [3 settlements]
Scots-Irish (1684-1799) [76 settlements]
Quakers (1680) [4 settlements]
English (1695) [1 settlement]
Germans (1732) [5 settlements]
Irish (1732) [1 settlement]
Vermont
Scots-Irish (1763-1778) [13 settlements]
Virginia
English (1607) [ 1 settlement]
Quakers (1660) [ 19 settlements]
Scots-Irish (1603-1798) [ 80settlements]
Huguenots (1685} [2 settlements]
West Virginia
Scots-Irish (1737-1798) [19 settlements]