The Scots left their homeland for religious, political, and economic reasons. Covenanters were transported or left the turbulent religious situation of the seventeenth century. The Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745 contributed both refugees and those sentenced to servitude in America, and the Highland Clearances fit into the economic category as a cause of emigration. Another fairly significant number of Scottish settlers came from the disbanded soldiers left behind at the end of the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War), 1756-1763. Before 1815 the migrants were more likely to be Highlanders, but after 1815 the pattern changed and the majority were from the Lowlands.

Other conclusions can be drawn by looking at some numbers. Between 1820 and 1900, roughly 365,000 Scots emigrated to the United States and 250,000 to Canada. When considered in the context of the populations of the two countries, the post 1815 Scottish element in Canada is huge relative to the total population. Not so in the United States. In other words, proportionately, Canadians are more likely to be engaged in nineteenth-century Scottish research.

If the origins of your Scottish ancestors are unclear, you may gain some insights by learning more about the patterns of migration. However, by far the best way to start is to discover who actually crossed the Atlantic, when, and where he or she originally settled. Knowing this location is particularly important because it may lead you to infer which area of Scotland was home to the family. In other words, when beginning your research, do everything possible on this side of the ocean first.

There is another very good reason for building extensive knowledge of the family after its arrival in America. The best way to describe this reason is family reconstruction. Many of you will face the problem of very few different surnames in the area of origin in Scotland. It will help to sort out all the MacKinnons or MacDonalds if you carry a batch of given names into your Scottish research. If you are fortunate, you may also have a wife's or mother's maiden name. In Scotland, a woman retained her maiden name throughout her lifetime. Although she may have used a husband's surname while married, she was recorded in parish registers and many other records by her maiden name, and she might have reverted to this name if predeceased by her husband. Knowing a woman's maiden name may be the key to beginning successful research in Scotland. On the other hand, there may be confusion if you have not identified a woman's name correctly as her maiden or married name.

At this early stage, it will do no harm to question the validity of your assumptions about Scottish origins. When settlers were arriving from Scotland in the eighteenth century, there was also a great influx of Scots-Irish from Ulster. They left Ireland because of high rent, famine, and the decline in the linen industry. The Scottish-sounding name in your background may not be a direct import from Scotland. The family may have spent many generations in Ulster.

More than a simple lack of knowledge may hide the truth. My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Blackhall. The family sprang from Aberdeenshire and was very proud of it. In fact, this was the only beginning I, or my mother, ever heard about (her mother died when she was six). It was not until I researched the family that I discovered that it was transplanted from Aberdeenshire to County Down in Northern Ireland nearly two hundred years before emigrating to New York State, and from thence two generations later to Canada. In nineteenth-century Toronto, it was more acceptable to be Scottish; thus, the Irish interlude faded from the family tradition.

A further caution is warranted for those of you who find a name in a list of the so-called "septs" of a particular clan. Sept, from the Irish language, has a connotation similar to clan, and is a subject of some debate. The lists have been the creations of the manufacturers and sellers of mementos and tartan-traps created by nineteenth- and twentieth-century romantics and opportunists more interested, then and now, in a sale than the truth. Some families and clans have recognized the connections, but the better term is associated families. There are other lists, which link names with suggested tartans to be worn, but they are nothing more than that; they should never be taken as indicating a connection to a clan. To find out more about surnames--in particular, their origin and use in the Highlands--and about clans, their history, tartans, and associated families, refer to the books listed in the bibliography.
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The excerpt above is from "Your Scottish Ancestry: A Guide for North Americans," by Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA(Scot), winner of NGS's 1998 Award for Excellence in Genealogical Methods and Sources. It has just been reprinted and is today’s Product of the Day, on sale for $14.95. http://shop.myfamily.com/ancestrycatalog/
product.asp?pf%5Fid=14046&dept%5Fid=10203005 Sherry Irvine is also the author of "Your English Ancestry: A Guide for North Americans" and Ancestry Daily News readers will be happy to learn that she has agreed to write a series of articles for the Daily News which will begin in the next month or so.