Quote Originally Posted by Jock Scot View Post
Many Scots are completely mystified by all this. Using myself as an example here, I just don't understand this "cousin" thing, ....Just because someone from Texas, North Island New Zealand, or, Western Australia has the same surname as me, well good for them, but they are not my "cousins"-----I know who my cousins are thank you....If you are an American then be an American, ....

I have encountered this attitude my entire life and the Scots, in this regard, are no different than the peoples of other nations. I routinely met people who had never left their home state, and in many cases had ventured no further than the next county. Thus, I can appreciate the fact that it is very difficult for those whose families have lived in one location for generations to understand the hunger of the descendants of immigrants for an ancestral home.

My experience is totally different from theirs and yours. By the time I was 18 I had lived in 19 different places, to include two European countries. The only time I saw my immediate relatives was when we moved from one location to another and visited them on the way (and then we had to go to 5 or more different states).

As I trace my genealogy, I find that my ancestors were nearly as mobile as I, with many living in the same locale for a less than a generation or two. But I have no native state; there is no place that I consider myself "from." There are only places where I have lived or and where my ancestors lived.

I was greatly surprised to learn I had "family" from Virginia, though 200 years separated us from the time they moved out in 1790 and I moved back in 1985. Ironically, they were Scots who came to Virginia by way of Pennsylvania, but in reality I am no more a Virginian or a Pennsylvanian than I am a Scot.