How accurate are the online tartan/clan locators?

[Ripcode]

After talking to my wife's Mom, she said she is of Irish descent. My Mother-in-law's maiden name is Rice. Her father came from Kentucky (Which I have found has a large Irish population). This has my wife and I very interested and we are going to keep on digging for more information.

Checking a few online clan/tartan locators it says that Rice was part of the Buchanan or Gordon clan?

Is that possible??

[macwilkin]

After talking to my wife's Mom, she said she is of Irish descent. My Mother-in-law's maiden name is Rice. Her father came from Kentucky (Which I have found has a large Irish population). This has my wife and I very interested and we are going to keep on digging for more information.

Checking a few online clan/tartan locators it says that Rice was part of the Buchanan or Gordon clan?

Is that possible??

Kentucky has a large Scots-Irish population. The Scots-Irish were largely Lowland Scots who immigrated to Northern Ireland (Ulster) before pushing on to North America, where they settled in the backcountry and pushed through the Cumberland Gap to KY and TN. You will also find a mixture of English, Welsh, Highlanders, German and French Protestant blood intermingled with them. They are "Irish" only in the fact that they formerly resided in Ireland, but not necessarily in culture or religion.

The best way to determine the answer to your question is to trace your genealogy back to Scotland to see when your people came from.

T.

[Ripcode]

Kentucky has a large Scots-Irish population. The Scots-Irish were largely Lowland Scots who immigrated to Northern Ireland (Ulster) before pushing on to North America, where they settled in the backcountry and pushed through the Cumberland Gap to KY and TN. You will also find a mixture of English, Welsh, Highlanders, German and French Protestant blood intermingled with them. They are "Irish" only in the fact that they formerly resided in Ireland, but not necessarily in culture or religion.

The best way to determine the answer to your question is to trace your genealogy back to Scotland to see when your people came from.

T.

Wow! That is good stuff! I am even more intrigued!

[Tim Little]

I'd echo what Todd said in terms of doing the legwork on your genealogy, but I'd also throw out the possibility that the surname "Rice" might derive from the Welsh "Rhys"....

[Ripcode]

I'd echo what Todd said in terms of doing the legwork on your genealogy, but I'd also throw out the possibility that the surname "Rice" might derive from the Welsh "Rhys"....

Wow! That is a cool possibilty!

[macwilkin]

I'd echo what Todd said in terms of doing the legwork on your genealogy, but I'd also throw out the possibility that the surname "Rice" might derive from the Welsh "Rhys"....

Tim, an excellent observation...in a similar vein, the surname "Crockett", as in the famed frontiersman David Crockett, was originally a French Huguenot name, de la Croquetagne.

T.

[EagleJCS]

I'd echo what Todd said in terms of doing the legwork on your genealogy, but I'd also throw out the possibility that the surname "Rice" might derive from the Welsh "Rhys"....

Indeed. I have forebears in KY/VA dating from that time frame who spelled their name in a variety of ways over three generations: Priest, Price, Preece, and Prees (the original Welsh spelling, dating to 1710).

Thank goodness for Mr. Dan'l Webster and standardized spelling! (Though it seems to be falling off again as people become lazy/reliant upon "spell check" - or simply don't care to learn the correct spelling and usage of the language they're trying to communicate in. That's a whole other topic/rant.)

[Drac]

Kentucky has a large Scots-Irish population. The Scots-Irish were largely Lowland Scots who immigrated to Northern Ireland (Ulster) before pushing on to North America, where they settled in the backcountry and pushed through the Cumberland Gap to KY and TN. You will also find a mixture of English, Welsh, Highlanders, German and French Protestant blood intermingled with them. They are "Irish" only in the fact that they formerly resided in Ireland, but not necessarily in culture or religion.

The best way to determine the answer to your question is to trace your genealogy back to Scotland to see when your people came from.

T.

That is something I hadn't heard of.

My mother's family is from the mountains of Kentucky, Park(s). My (slim) Scottish heritage is from her great grandmother, a Steele. We always assumed that the Scotch name was from a long time ago or such. Would be interesting that my mother's family might be Scots-Irish instead of just Irish like we always thought. Unfortunely her family is bad about records so we have no real way to trace beyond the Greats.

Jim

[EagleJCS]

Drac, you may be able to do better than just the Greats. If you know the county (or counties) where they lived, there may be a genealogical society for that county on the US GenWeb site and there may be something already available. Or, you could contact the county courthouse directly. Any birth/marriage/death records prior to 1911 reside in the county of record (those after 1911 reside in the state archives in Frankfort, or one of the archive copies found at various libraries). Other court documents - tax records, appointments, wills, etc. - also reside in the county of record. The courthouses will do a records search for a fee.

I have a distant cousin who did a lot of research on our family tree and made it back to about 1790 (where the record gets muddled a little due to a loss of some of the Virginia records). KY didn't become a state until 1792.

[macwilkin]

Indeed. I have forebears in KY/VA dating from that time frame who spelled their name in a variety of ways over three generations: Priest, Price, Preece, and Prees (the original Welsh spelling, dating to 1710).

Thank goodness for Mr. Dan'l Webster and standardized spelling! (Though it seems to be falling off again as people become lazy/reliant upon "spell check" - or simply don't care to learn the correct spelling and usage of the language they're trying to communicate in. That's a whole other topic/rant.)

Don't you mean Mr. Noah Webster? "Black Daniel" Webster didn't tackle standardized spelling, but he did win a court case against Mr. Scratch once...

T.