Why does everyone think Southerners are Celtic?

[Rusk County Avengers]

The common belief is the American South is thoroughly Scottish/Irish/Scots Irish. Where did this absolutely ridiculous rubbish come from?

This is a question that often occurs to me when I often hear how the Confederate Soldier was basically the ideal culmination of his Celtic ancestor's culture.

I've often been quite insulted by this as a Southerner, one who's ancestry goes all the way back before 1700 in several lines, and before 1800 in all the rest. My family is definitely Anglo-Saxon, with only a smidgen of Scottish blood on my Mother's side, who while having a Scottish Maiden name, DNA testing by more trusting relatives has shown that line overall to be 96% Anglo-Saxon, and less than one percent Scottish. There's actually more French, and even Scandanavian blood!

(We still have no idea where the latter came from! Although the French is easy to trace for me, a branch has a French name, my folks stubbornly believe that name and line is Spanish and can't figure out why Spanish doesn't show up. Even the ones with degrees say I'm an idiot for saying I know where the French is.)

It goes deeper than simple bloodlines to my eyes as well. Our accents more closely resemble various English ones, our architecture, politics, fashions, even culture more closely resemble old English ones and always have. Heck, as one funny personal example I have a strong Texas/Deep South accent, and after binge watching English shows and movies set in the Napoleonic Wars for a few hours, I can do an excellent imitation of a few different English accents with little effort. So much so, that I once fooled a well-traveled Australian college professor into thinking I was from Northern England. For hours. I can't do that with Scottish/Irish accents at all no matter how hard I try, much less any others, mainly because of my thick Southern accent.

And it doesn't stop there! If one reads Revolutionary War history in the South, it becomes pretty obvious the South being Celtic is highly unlikely. There were a lot of Scots, and some Scots Irish, the majority sided with King George, guess what happened to them and where their descendants ended up? (Nova Scotia if anyone is wondering...) The majority back then was plainly Anglo-Saxon, and flash forward to the War for Southern Independence, newspapers, diaries, and memoirs by educated Confederates, bear out pretty plainly they thought themselves very Anglo-Saxon.

But so many books, by authors great and small, and many in-my-opinion all the very misguided partisan ones, bear out Southerner's to be Scots Irish and of other Celtic identity. So much so its become "accepted fact" to many. I know one teacher and author I frequently argue this subject with, and he'll drag out other college educated numbskulls to back him up to say we're all Scots Irish. (Those arguments usually end with all the evidence I throw out being discounted as worthless because I don't have a degree. And people who know me wonder I have zero respect for degrees.)

Sure, in areas like Appalachia, Scottish and Irish surnames are in the majority, but that's only one small part of the larger South, and in the CW era it was the least populated! Still is to a high degree...

But what say all y'all out there? Am I right, wrong, or a troublemaker questioning what should not be questioned and now owe a debt in a blood feud?

I wonder where this thread will go.

And no! Just because the "Confederate Battle Flag" uses St. Andrew's Cross doesn't mean we're Scottish! There were many different ones than the one from movies! Polk's used St. George's of English association, Van Dorn used one that looks like a Muslim banner! And for the love of God Almighty in Heaven other people besides the Scots use St. Andrew's Cross. Like the Russians! They love to use that symbol.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

Sure, in areas like Appalachia, Scottish and Irish surnames are in the majority, but that's only one small part of the larger South, and in the CW era it was the least populated! Still is to a high degree...

I have Appalachian roots and a fair number of "Scotch Arsh" and Welsh surnames in my family tree. I believe the Ulster Exodus started around 1725 and continued until just before the American Revolution.

The big arrival ports were Philadelphia and Charleston. The English had started coming a century earlier and most of the costal and some of the piedmont regions were settled by them. So the Ulster Scots had to move further inland to find areas to settle. That put them into the Appalachians.

And that probably is the reason they went there. It wasn't some romantic longing for the Highlands. That makes a nice story but it's likely not so.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

View attachment 461221


The common belief is the American South is thoroughly Scottish/Irish/Scots Irish. Where did this absolutely ridiculous rubbish come from?

I believe that notion is promoted by Michael Hill and the League of the South.

 

[wausaubob]

There is census data and modern interactive compilations of the place of origin for people living in the 34 states of the 1860 US. There is scant evidence that there were people in the southern areas that had immigrated from Britain. There wasn't very much immigration into the US between the Revolutionary War and 1844. The University of Washington produced this depiction: https://depts.washington.edu/moving1/migrationhistory-states.shtml

 

[huskerblitz]

Have to admit this is new to me. Never heard of this.

 

[wausaubob]

The pre Ivanhoe novels of Sir Walter Scott may have something to do with it.

 

[John Hartwell]

The pre Ivanhoe novels of Sir Walter Scott may have something to do with it.

Yes. Bits and pieces of historical fact smothered beneath a blanket of romantic nonsense.

 

[C. Cash]

I would say if your family was rooted in the South for say 1-200 years before the Civil War, your going to have some Scots Irish ancestry for sure. But also prevelant in the South were folks of English, Irish, "Dutch" or German, French/Huguenot, and other ancestries as well. Some will have Native American and African American. So, it was more of a melting pot than Southerners want to believe or admit to. But the Scots Irish ancestry was there for sure and Southerners cling to it for many reasons. They were a freedom loving group of people and without them and their ways we would probably not have prevailed against England. My Cash's lived near and interacted with the Washington's in Westmoreland and Fairfax Co's of VA ca. 1600's onward and went to Washington County, TN about 1781....living in TN until they went to TX in 1881. I note Scots Irish, Irish, English, Huguenot, French, German in there but mostly from the first three.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

My family is definitely Anglo-Saxon, with only a smidgen of Scottish blood on my Mother's side, who while having a Scottish Maiden name, DNA testing by more trusting relatives has shown that line overall to be 96% Anglo-Saxon, and less than one percent Scottish. There's actually more French, and even Scandanavian blood!

(We still have no idea where the latter came from…….

My sister did a DNA test and it came back about a quarter British Isles origin and three quarters Northwestern European origin. So in spite of many family surnames suggesting mostly Celtic origin, such is not the predominant DNA!

There was also a smidgen of Eastern European. My sister was perplexed and wondered what that was all about. I told her the Roman Army got around…….

 

[turner ashby kidd]

Much of this can be attributed to Sir Walter Scott.His works had great impact on the pre-war South.
Celtic is a culture shared by many groups over much of Western Europe at one time. Just a culture.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

Yes. Bits and pieces of historical fact smothered beneath a blanket of romantic nonsense.

It is indeed important to put things in context, even when it shatters notions held dear.

For example, old accounts frequently mention how physically imposing Viking men were. You get the idea that these raiders must have looked like NFL draft picks. But archeological evidence shows most Viking men to have been under six feet tall.

But I suppose if you're an ill fed European peasant who is maybe less than 5'6" and well under 150lbs, some screaming dude coming out of the dark standing maybe 5'9" and weighing 175 or so will be quite scary.

 

[Sheltowee]

In my case, Scots Irish is indeed well-represented. But English is, as well. My genealogy shows no obvious French, Italian, or Eastern European folks.

I haven't done DNA- don't expect to see anything I don't already know. But I would expect to see a trace of Scandinavian- most likely from Vikings.

To your point, I pay attention to surnames in southern rosters. Pretty obvious from the names, that there were a lot of different nationalities represented. Deep South and Upper South were not one in the same.

 

[EHParks]

View attachment 461221


The common belief is the American South is thoroughly Scottish/Irish/Scots Irish. Where did this absolutely ridiculous rubbish come from?

This is a question that often occurs to me when I often hear how the Confederate Soldier was basically the ideal culmination of his Celtic ancestor's culture.

I've often been quite insulted by this as a Southerner, one who's ancestry goes all the way back before 1700 in several lines, and before 1800 in all the rest. My family is definitely Anglo-Saxon, with only a smidgen of Scottish blood on my Mother's side, who while having a Scottish Maiden name, DNA testing by more trusting relatives has shown that line overall to be 96% Anglo-Saxon, and less than one percent Scottish. There's actually more French, and even Scandanavian blood!

(We still have no idea where the latter came from! Although the French is easy to trace for me, a branch has a French name, my folks stubbornly believe that name and line is Spanish and can't figure out why Spanish doesn't show up. Even the ones with degrees say I'm an idiot for saying I know where the French is.)

It goes deeper than simple bloodlines to my eyes as well. Our accents more closely resemble various English ones, our architecture, politics, fashions, even culture more closely resemble old English ones and always have. Heck, as one funny personal example I have a strong Texas/Deep South accent, and after binge watching English shows and movies set in the Napoleonic Wars for a few hours, I can do an excellent imitation of a few different English accents with little effort. So much so, that I once fooled a well-traveled Australian college professor into thinking I was from Northern England. For hours. I can't do that with Scottish/Irish accents at all no matter how hard I try, much less any others, mainly because of my thick Southern accent.

And it doesn't stop there! If one reads Revolutionary War history in the South, it becomes pretty obvious the South being Celtic is highly unlikely. There were a lot of Scots, and some Scots Irish, the majority sided with King George, guess what happened to them and where their descendants ended up? (Nova Scotia if anyone is wondering...) The majority back then was plainly Anglo-Saxon, and flash forward to the War for Southern Independence, newspapers, diaries, and memoirs by educated Confederates, bear out pretty plainly they thought themselves very Anglo-Saxon.

But so many books, by authors great and small, and many in-my-opinion all the very misguided partisan ones, bear out Southerner's to be Scots Irish and of other Celtic identity. So much so its become "accepted fact" to many. I know one teacher and author I frequently argue this subject with, and he'll drag out other college educated numbskulls to back him up to say we're all Scots Irish. (Those arguments usually end with all the evidence I throw out being discounted as worthless because I don't have a degree. And people who know me wonder I have zero respect for degrees.)

Sure, in areas like Appalachia, Scottish and Irish surnames are in the majority, but that's only one small part of the larger South, and in the CW era it was the least populated! Still is to a high degree...

But what say all y'all out there? Am I right, wrong, or a troublemaker questioning what should not be questioned and now owe a debt in a blood feud?

I wonder where this thread will go.

And no! Just because the "Confederate Battle Flag" uses St. Andrew's Cross doesn't mean we're Scottish! There were many different ones than the one from movies! Polk's used St. George's of English association, Van Dorn used one that looks like a Muslim banner! And for the love of God Almighty in Heaven other people besides the Scots use St. Andrew's Cross. Like the Russians! They love to use that symbol.

P.R.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Celtic and Scottish culture (two different things) are much romanticized today; not sure about the 19th century.

Ivanhoe was incredibly popular in the antebellum South.

Who started the North vs South = Roundheads vs Cavaliers idea? Was that antebellum or postbellum? Either way, Southerners liked the narrative. They believed it because they wanted it to be true.

 

[delta rifles]

I think there are more than a few factors at play here. I understand that the Gulf Coast/South Louisiana is an anomaly in comparison to the rest of the South, but its what I know best so I'll give my take on your question with that caveat.

For one, there's perception vs reality in play here. We can trace my family's ancestry in Louisiana back to two French soldiers who received land grants along the Mississippi during the first quarter of the 18th century. The common assumption by many of my displaced family members is that we somehow are of acadian/cajun ancestry; however, none of my ancestors were on any of the four boats that arrived in Louisiana from French Canada after the French and Indian War. The fact of the matter is thousands of French immigrants flooded Louisiana (via San Domingue or from the French mainland itself) during the late Spanish period/early territorial period, but they are often overlooked when delve into the history of the French people in Louisiana. I guess its more interesting in that light to some.

There is also the issue of assimilation. The Germans that arrived on the Gulf Coast in the 1700's fully assimilated into French culture and began speaking French rather than their native tongue in Louisiana within a generation or two. French culture was the way of life in Southern Louisiana for much of its early existence so its no surprise that outsiders who wanted to fit in lost their own cultural identities rather quickly. This phenomena has been an integral part of our country's history when dealing with immigration. Many people shed their own outward ethnic/cultural heritage in order to fit in with to more dominant culture in the area. Language loss/ anglicized names are all a manifestation of this.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that its easier to homogenize entire populations without wanting to actually understand the differences between entirely different groups of people...now also add the fact that almost 12 percent of whites in South Carolina and Louisiana have traces of African ancestry in their DNA and that opens up an entirely different can of worms that people a hundred years ago may not have been willing to address at all.

As to the confusion between French/Spanish surnames...look no further than Carondelet Street in New Orleans. We pronounce it as if it were a French word, but its actually Spanish.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

I believe that notion is promoted by Michael Hill and the League of the South.

I've seen the assertions of that particular person before, I can't see many folks giving him their ears and him being the originator.

This notion seems to be everywhere when one enters circles more sympathetic to the Confederacy and by extension, the South. I know many a reenactment and SCV meeting I've ticked off folks by saying we're mostly English. I've had many folks with plainly English surnames throw fits that we're Scots and I must be a DamYankee sympathizer and don't read.

Which for the record to curious readers, my sympathies are with the South, and being well read is why I'm insulted. Kind of like the romantic Lost Cause narrative. I'm often insulted by that as I fail to see how it ever qualified for being "lost" during and after the war. But that's a discussion for another time. Speaking of which, did that imbecile newspaper reporter Edward Pollard have something to do with this Scottish stuff?

I've long noticed however, that it almost seems like it was after 1996 and a certain Mel Gibson movie came out that this nonsense became an all of the sudden well-known fact.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

I would say if your family was rooted in the South for say 1-200 years before the Civil War, your going to have some Scots Irish ancestry for sure. But also prevelant in the South were folks of English, Irish, "Dutch" or German, French/Huguenot, and other ancestries as well. Some will have Native American and African American. So, it was more of a melting pot than Southerners want to believe or admit to. But the Scots Irish ancestry was there for sure and Southerners cling to it for many reasons. They were a freedom loving group of people and without them and their ways we would probably not have prevailed against England. My Cash's lived near and interacted with the Washington's in Westmoreland and Fairfax Co's of VA ca. 1600's onward and went to Washington County, TN about 1781....living in TN until they went to TX in 1881. I note Scots Irish, Irish, English, Huguenot, French, German in there but mostly from the first three.

I don't know, my ancestry is primarily English, German, Native American, some French with what little Scottish blood coming in last in terms of quantity. I know many family members often talked of us having a lot of Irish on my Mother's maternal side, but after doing a ton of digging, it turned out to be the most English line of all of them, all the way back to the 1740's starting in Virginia. Lord knows in terms of looks, English and Native American runs very strong in the family, the Native American being strong due it being more recent in the family tree, my Confederate GG-Grandfather marrying my Cherokee GG-Grandmother.

Funny story, I lack the facial characteristics of Cherokees unlike my Father and everyone else in the family, but when I tan my skin turns uniquely red.

The South like most of America is indeed a melting pot, but I think due to the CW, immigration here kind of slowed in comparison to the North. Less economic opportunity outside of coastal areas. Plus, most immigration back then as now, tends to be driven by the poor looking to make a new life, and the poor have a tendency to buy the cheapest ticket in. Which New York and Boston were I imagine the winners in that department. Less nautical miles from Western Europe to New England than say the Carolinas, and Gulf Coast. Of course, there were probably exceptions.

But on the bright side, we're probably closer in terms of genetic origin to the people of Colonial/Revolutionary times! Or at least were till Mexicans got into the mix. I know them and Yankees have REALLY infiltrated my family. Seriously my brother, cousins and so forth didn't marry a single fellow Southerner.

 

[Sgt. Tyree]

Here's a little something else showing the Confederate Scottish fascination. Go to YouTube and listen to "Bonnie Dundee." Then listen to "Riding a Raid."

 

[rbasin]

Georgia was used as a penal colony by the empire at one time. After the revolution, prisoners were sent to Australia.

 

[Rhea Cole]

In Obion CO TN in 1860, 80% of the population was of West African descent. After the failed revolution in Prussia, Augusta GA had a large German community. The gulf coast has to this day a distinct French / Native / African makeup. Irish were hired to do the work that was too risky for very valuable slaves. The 2,200 rail-road tunnel linking Nashville & Chattanooga was drilled by Africans & blasted by Irish. The areas on either side of the mountain surnames are still often Irish. Despite all, there was a considerable Native population in the Carolinas.

A reigning Scottish laird was raised here in Murfreesboro TN. It was always a shock to see him in full regalia being kowtowed to at the Highland Games. Dr Charles Wolf, distinguished ethnomusicologist, documented the Celtic cultural heritage that is still a vibrant part of Appalachian mountain culture today.

So, the only way I can see anybody can claim the the "South" is or was Celtic is by never having lived here. Let's face it, south is a direction. The large number of Chinese, Sicilian, & Mexican contract workers who were brought in to replace Africans on sugar plantations pretty well drove the last nail into that part of the Moonlight & Magnolia fiction.