Scottish or Welsh?

[Phillips]

Thank you for the help. I was aware of Cumberland being once laden county. Unfortunately the only way to confirm or deny my families origins is to find the records myself. One day I will find myself in those counties with time to search the records. Till then a cloud of doubt will hang over that family line.

[Stoff]

It might be worth a phone call to the county seat. My of North Carolina's counties have a county genealogical library/record center. If so they just might be able to help. I know that my Dad did this when he was researching our family's history about 10 years ago. He was operating from Richlands in Onslow County and did much of his research over the phone and on the internet. You might also check with your local LDS church, they are one of the leading genealogical record centers in the USA. Also check with your local genealogical society.

Unfortunately he passed away in 2008 or I would put you in touch with him. He was always eager to help others trying to research their family history.

Good luck with your search.

Christoph, also a native of NC with a long family history.

[Damion]

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.

[Phillips]

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.

I just read back over the settlements petition for a minister and they are writing to the synod of Argyll. Which I believe is Presbyterian.

[LKM]

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.

[O'Callaghan]

Religion is a possible link to nationality, but in the US gets less and less meaningful as we approach the present day. In the past, a Scot may have been Presbyterian and a Welshman Methodist, but in the modern day it can come down to which minister the family prefer, for example. IOW, if you know what religion they were in 1729, that may carry some weight, but if you scramble those digits to, say, 1972, it is likely to mean very little indeed.

[Damion]

There are no guarantees with this sort of thing, even with long standing records, just ask the McNeils of Barra.
I had some ancestors whose intentions were to create an Orange settlement in New Zealand with a mostly/wholly? Presbyterian upper class lording it over a Catholic underclass. The conditions were not as great as expected, and the settlement itself too small to be independent. The two groups soon formed a single group and were absorbed into the rest of the country within a couple of generations.

[hornedhelm]

Phillips,

If I can make a suggestion, the best way to trace your ancestry beyond the paper record is with DNA testing, but more specifically y chromosome testing. If you are a direct male descendant of the line in question, which with your name I assume you are, then a y chromosome test would be best. The y chromosome is passed more or less unchanged from father to son and so forth, so testing it can link you with other Phillips lines, some possibly still overseas, and give you a better idea of a country of origin by SNP testing and other non-phillips matches. Check into familytreedna.com and if you have the interest and can afford it go ahead an buy a 67 marker test to start. That will give you enough markers to really compare against others. Also check through the Phillips DNA project with others who have tested. You will see that there are many different lines of various origins. Its possible that someone with a common direct ancestor has already tested and their matches and SNPs may give you a clue to the origin. Heres the link:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public...ame=ycolorized

Disclaimer: only dna test if you are open minded and willing to accept the result. Sometimes we uncover skeletons in the closest, sometimes adoptions and name changes. We aren't always what we think. I'm a good example. I thought I was a Murphy from Ireland growing up. DNA testing revealed that I wasn't related to any Murphy lines and confirmed an old family tale that I had always dismissed... apparently our name was previously Nobles and our Y chromosome is only found in the Scottish Highlands. Sadly, I apparently come from some rare line and don't match the majority of Noble(s) out there who come from the borders and northern ireland. I've heard some of the clan Chattan changed their names to Nobles to sound english and fled. Mayhaps thats where ours came from, given I distantly match Davidsons Andersons and Frasers, who were close to those areas? Anyway I was already kilted and competing in the highland games, so i was pretty content with this discovery. Even if you do discover a welsh heritage I'm sure you have other Scottish lines in your genealogy which you can represent. Check it out, it can be a great tool and I encourage you to use it.

[ctbuchanan]

Of course this doesn't replace a genealogy search but the National Trust names survey of the 1881 Census for the U.K. Identifies the name as Welsh. Here is the distribution map for that census - not too many in Scotland. But as I said people migrate and can show up anywhere.

http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/Ma...y=GB&type=name