The Scots Who Left

[macwilkin]

That reminds me, I need to hunt down the Vance Randolph books you have suggested, cajunscot. Though probably not Ulster Scots, many of my ancestors lived in the Ozarks, and Arkansas.

Shoot me a PM or an e-mail, Ted, and I'll send you a reading list for Randolph.

T.

[Bugbear]

Thanks cajunscot: PM sent.

Needed some time to put my thoughts together... There's been discussion of having to find one's identity in the US. Perhaps that is the case, however, I view it more as a struggle to keep one's identity; to not be strong-armed out of one's own family-given culture and pushed into something else. Sometimes, two contradicting cultures or traditions end up in the same family, and it does create something new and mixed out of the aftermath. That struggle and creation is what I consider the US culture to be. I think it is also born out of a very long history in this continent.

[MacBean]

...Were kilted schools common in the lowlands at that time?

Scottish boys at my school in the Sussex downs always wore kilts to church in the 50's. They lived in Scotland (it was a boarding school), but I don't know where. I was surprised to find that few if any locals wore kilts to church on Skye when I first visited.

[MacBean]

...This "playing at being a Scot" is just a turn of phrase that the Scots use and should be regarded as nothing more. Although, as we now know, it does seem to rankle with some outwith Scotland.

I've taken this thought in and mulled it over for some months. There is a lot of truth in it, I think. I do play at being a Scot. Anything else makes no sense, for my various Scottish ancestors all came over in the 1600s and 1700s.

and yet...I still feel a link with Scots. Not the land, perhaps not the culture really, but the genetic tendencies perhaps. I'm grasping at straws, for I don't really know. I don't like Scots more than other people (and I've lived in many countries and travelled in more), so it is not a romantic yearning. But as I come to understand myself more fully, I see traits that I can only associate with Scots.

And perhaps the reason Jock doesn't understand this, is that he doesn't share that genetic strain. It's an old argument, nature or nuture. My mother and brother weigh heavily on everything being genetic. I'm not so sure; an interesting unanswerable question.

[Gael Ridire]

“In all of us there is a hunger marrow deep to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge there is a hallow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.”

Alex Haley: author of ROOTS

I find this statement so true.

[Downunder Kilt]

In post 60 Jock mentioned the misunderstanding of words used by peoples of different countries.

I have two examples that may show this,

1. Many times I have heard and seen the phrase fanny pack or fanny bag and I realise that it is a bag you wear around your waist to carry keys, wallets or whatever you fancy. If you were in Australia and you went up to a lady wearing one of these packs and commented about it, in whatever way and you use the term fanny when describing it, you may very well find yourself being called a pervert and having to fight your way out of the situation. In Australia in does not mean bum, try the other side of the anatomy, same height.

2. Only today one of our TV shows titled Spicks and Specks, a fun type musical quiz show (also the name of a Bee Gees hit inthe 70's) attempted to have a app for it placed on the i phone. It was instantly censored in the USA as being a derogatory term to mexicans.

Guess the old term spick and span is no longer allowed either

One can easily see from the above that words mean hugely different things in different countries

[MacSpadger]

I must have missed the 'part three' you are referring to. For anyone to say that not many Scots immigrants settled in the south is a gross error. HUGE numbers of Scots and Scots-Irish settled in the south. There are more people in North Carolina with Scots surnames than in all of Scotland. The Scots were a major part of southern and hill country history and were responsible for settling the areas of Tenn, W. Va, Ark, Miss and on into the west. I'm sorry I missed that one or I would have set the record straight right away. Just a quick scan of the officers of the Confederacy would correct that misconception right away.

I think that this is the part referred to;

It was certainly true that some historic connections could be traced in pockets of North Carolina back to 18th-century Highland emigration. But, even if this old experience was historically renowned, it was very much an exception rather than the rule. The Scottish societies of recent times in the South may indeed be replete with Scottish names but their ancestral connection is mainly with Ireland rather than Scotland. The South attracted large numbers of Ulster Scots, whose Lowland Scots ancestors had settled in the north of Ireland in the 17th century. It is mainly their descendants, friends and families who now flock in large numbers to Highland Games and clan societies in the southern states. Significantly, when the first Grandfather Mountain Highland Games were held on 19 August, 1956 (the anniversary of the raising of the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan in 1745), the location was MacRae Meadows in the heart of Ulster-Scots territory. The Cape Fear area, where Highland immigrants had actually settled, was thought too flat and not sufficiently authentic to represent the romantic mountain country of bonnie Scotland.

There's a fair bit of follow on writing on the Southern States, but the paragraph above sums up the gist of Mr Devine's hypothesis.

[piperdbh]

In post 60 Jock mentioned the misunderstanding of words used by peoples of different countries.

"Jocking your bonnet" means something completely differen in some Caribbean nations, too.

One can easily see from the above that words mean hugely different things in different countries

[Father Bill]

This interesting stydy of language is helpful to the point at hand - maybe off topic, but helpful. It's a wonderful argument for the use of plain, clear, non-slang, language.

[Dale-of-Cedars]

“In all of us there is a hunger marrow deep to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge there is a hallow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.”

Alex Haley: author of ROOTS

I find this statement so true.

Seconded.
Being adopted, and not knowing my roots until I met my mother in my 40's, it was a revelation that I had deep Celtic roots; Glasgow Scots great-grandparents on one side, and Irish family via Montreal on the other.