Before 1650, only a few hundred Scots had trickled into the American colonies, but by the early 1770s the number had risen to 10,000 per year. A conservative estimate of the total number of Scots who settled in North America prior to 1785 is around 150,000. Who were these Scots? What did they do? Where did they settle? What factors motivated their emigration? Dobson's work, based on original research on both sides of the Atlantic, comprehensively identifies the Scottish contribution to the settlement of North America prior to 1785, with particular emphasis on the seventeenth century.
Before 1650, only a few hundred Scots had trickled into the American colonies, but by the early 1770s the number had risen to 10,000 per year. A conservative estimate of the total number of Scots who settled in North America prior to 1785 is around 150,000. Who were these Scots? What did they do? Where did they settle? What factors motivated their emigration? Dobson's work, based on original research on both sides of the Atlantic, comprehensively identifies the Scottish contribution to the settlement of North America prior to 1785, with particular emphasis on the seventeenth century.
Researchers on the trail of elusive ancestors sometimes turn to 18th- and early 19th-century newspapers after exhausting the first tier of genealogical sources (i.e., census records, wills, deeds, marriages, etc.). Generally speaking, early newspapers are not indexed, so they require investigators to comb through them, looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. With his latest book, Robert Barnes has made one aspect of the aforementioned chore much easier. This remarkable book contains advertisements for missing relatives and lost friends from scores of newspapers published in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, as well as a few from New York and the District of Columbia. The newspaper issues begin in 1719 (when the "American Weekly Mercury" began publication in Philadelphia) and run into the early 1800s. The author's comprehensive bibliography, in the Introduction to the work, lists all the newspapers and other sources he examined in preparing the book. The volume references 1,325 notices that chronicle the appearance or disappearance of 1,566 persons.
"Scots trappers dominated the fur trade, often proving more loyal to clan than to trading company or nation. Relying on centuries of experience raising livestock for British markets, Scottish investors and managers became highly visible in the post-Civil War western cattle industry with thriving outfits such as the Swan Land and Cattle Company in Wyoming. They introduced new breeds to western ranching, such as the Aberdeen Angus, that remain popular today. Similarly, Scots herders dominated the western sheep industry, running herds of over 100,000 animals. Andrew Little's sheep ranch in Idaho was so famous that a letter addressed simply "Andy Little, USA" found its intended recipient.
This work identifies the major sources and repositories for those just getting started on their research, and it also focuses on the other, less commonly used, sources that exist, which will allow more advanced researchers to put the basic facts they have gathered into context. With an emphasis on publications, manuscript sources, and archival records, David Dobson highlights ways to trace Scottish ancestors using alternative sources, primarily those covering the years between 1550 and 1850. For each research topic--including statutory registers, church records, tax records, sasines and land registers, court records, military and maritime sources, burgh and estate records, emigration records, and much more--Mr. Dobson has compiled an extensive list of the publications and archival records that will enable family historians to advance their research. Another unique feature is the inclusion of numerous excerpts from publications and archival records, which will help lead researchers to the sources most applicable to their research.
This second edition contains fully 30% more convict passengers than in the original.Dr. Dobson has made some modifications as well; for example, some men who were thought to have been Covenanters are now classed as rebels and English transportees have been omitted, while the references used have been enhanced to facilitate further research. In total, somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 Scots were banished to the Americas during the Colonial period (whereas England transported around 50,000 and Ireland in excess of 10,000), all of whom contributed to the settlement and development of Colonial America.