Quote Originally Posted by Damion View Post
People were clannish back then so tended to marry within their own religion. Scots would be Catholic, Presbyterian or Episcopalian. Anglican patriots became Episcopalians I believe after the revolution, but prior to that Episcopalians should point more to Scottish ancestry. So if you can find out what church these people belonged to, it would be a good indicator if they were Scots or Welsh. Another indicator is who they married. Scots would more likely marry other Scots and the same for Welsh. There may also be clues with names so check the origin of first names of your ancestors and their families to see if there are any telltale ethnic names.
My family tree shows the 1600s and 1700s to be quite different in the American colonies. There was a mixture of Welsh, Scottish, English, and others that appear to have been more connected by faith then family history. In Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England at the time the denomination of Christianity was more connected to where the family lived. From what I understand most Presbyterians in that time were Scottish, yet there were still English and Welsh Presbyterians. If the petition was from when the family had recently arrived in the colonies then Presbyterian would indicate Scottish.

I wish we had the church records that Tarheel mentioned, yet my family were nonconformists before they came to the Americas. The family was mentioned in several other families records, so I would assume that those families are the ones that kept the records.