NO! You are NOT Irish! History of a big myth in genealogy!

[Music] no you were not Irish you aren't a child of Aaron you don't have the Luck of the Irish and you can't blame that temper of yours on Irish roots when Americans are asked what their ethnicity is millions of US list Irish first why is that where did this misconception come from so if you aren't Irish then what are you in this video I'll explain my point and a little bit about the migrations of Irish immigrants to America and why so many of us have been told incorrectly all of our lives that we are Irish by the way you're not Cherokee either so be sure to see our video about that topic as well hey everybody this is Colonel Carson with family tree nuts and I'm excited to bring this topic to you at family tree nuts we build family trees for our clients and we make history videos all over the United States and a few countries as a matter of fact we have a whole playlist of videos from Ireland jam-packed full of Irish history so you want to make sure to see those if you like videos like these be sure to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to give us a thumbs up and a comment letting us know your thoughts now back to why you're not Irish before I get too deep in this video I guess I need to State the obvious of course some of you are Irish some of you or your close ancestors were born there some of you have done your family trees and discovered your Irish ancestors names and maybe even where in Ireland they came from this video is not aimed at you it is aimed that those that have been told they were Irish assumed it or simply just wanted to be Irish hopefully by the end of this video you have a deeper understanding of who you are and where your ancestors came from so what is Irish anyway for the sake of keeping this video short and on topic I'll sum it up quickly the Irish are a group of people from distinct Celtic tribes that due to geography and politics have remained less ethnically diverse than other areas that Celtic people once dominated they are ancient cousins with the Scottish the Welsh and even the britons that ruled modern-day England before the Romans and later the Germanic Angles and Saxons arrived to understand the Irish relation to other Celtic peoples think of the tribe's Shawnee and Cherokee which are ethnically very similar but with different Traditions cultures and heritages with a strong sense of identity geography politics and religion the Irish have remained an ethnicity that has evolved over the centuries but how Irish are the Irish according to ancestry DNA most Irish in Ireland are less than 75 percent Irish themselves leaving the remaining 25 percent or so to other ethnic groups in Ulster that number shrieks down to close to 50 percent phew statistics like this can get confusing so I'll get back on the main topic to better understand the chances of you having Irish Roots you not only need to know the story of your ancestors but also when and where the Irish came to America for the first century of settlement in a new world hardly any Irish immigrated to America and almost all the Irish that did immigrate during this time period settled in the Boston area or in the Chesapeake Bay Area in Maryland however by the year 1715 only about one percent of New England or Maryland were Irish after 1715 and until the time of the Revolutionary War America was blessed with waves of tens of thousands of Irish immigrants except they weren't really Irish they were Scots Irish I'll get into the Scots Irish later in this video the next wave of Irish immigration was the time of the dreaded Irish potato famine during the mid-1840s until the early 1850s hundreds of thousands of Irish left the Shamrock shores of Ireland and immigrated all over the world many of them to America especially to the Boston area by the mid-1850s the population of Boston was estimated to be about 25 percent Irish with 85 percent of those Irish actually being born in Ireland another wave of Irish immigration happened in the 1880s due to economically hard times in Ireland many of those immigrants took jobs building the railroads that were quickly connecting the country and some became coal miners often in Western Pennsylvania and other regions in Appalachia the point of explaining these Irish immigration waves is to show you that if you don't have ancestors linking to these time periods and locations the chances of you being Irish yourself is drastically diminished it's not impossible of course just highly unlikely when I was a boy I asked my mom where are we from what are we the first thing she mentioned was Irish and I declared St Patrick's day as my favorite holiday however as I got older and did my research I confirmed that I was Irish but it was on my father's side not my mother's why did she think that she had Irish roots well my roots go deep in Appalachia and like I already explained understanding the immigration waves dates patterns and where groups settled gives us a tremendous clue of our ethnicity the fact is my mother is mostly Scots Irish as is my father for that matter however the family stories that were passed down said that we were Irish not Scots Irish why is that what's the difference between Scots Irish and regular Irish well to fully explain that would make this video quite long but we do have a few other videos that discuss the topic in detail so you may want to check those out as well I'll sum up the Scots Irish as fast as I possibly can beginning in the early 1600s for many reasons Great Britain under the leadership of King James the first began to relocate many lowland Scots and some english that lived along the tumultuous border of Scotland and England these people were mostly Protestant and had a warrior culture due to almost continuous fighting in the region that they came from they were relocated to Northern Ireland and became known as the Ulster Scots this group of people clashed with the mostly Catholic local Irish the two groups constantly fought each other and they intermixed and married each other over a few Generations they became a new group of people that we referred to today as the Scots Irish after a century or so the people began to think of themselves as Irish and less Scottish or English their Customs became more traditional Irish even though some of them weren't ethnically Irish at all in the early 1700s this group of people were heavily recruited to settle in the back country of the British colonies to serve as a buffer between the native tribes and the English settlements their hearty and Warrior culture made them a perfect fit for their new home like every other ethnic group The Scots Irish did spread out all over the map but they concentrated in Appalachia these folks would have told their descendants that they were Irish not Scots Irish because that term wasn't used until much later this is where the stories like my mother telling me about us being Irish are from so now that we know where those stories come from are we that are mostly Scots Irish Irish yes we certainly are but we are also Scottish in English we are our own specific kind of Irish that is much different than those immigrants that came a century later during a potato famine and those that came in the 1880s to work on the railroads and the coal mines so now that we have learned that many of us that think we are Irish aren't Irish at all or more commonly are technically Scots Irish why is it that so many want to be Irish why is it that so many of us list Irish first when we talk about our ethnic background well the answer is actually the same reason that so many of us claim Cherokee ancestry we are simply drawn and hope to relate to the struggle for centuries the Irish had been discriminated against in the British Empire they're often refusal to assimilate into British Society has caused them to be exploited and even enslaved many of us have never been told How the Irish were often thought of as a subspecies of humans and how business used to display Nina signs which were help wanted no Irish need apply like many Native Americans and other races The Irish often hid their Roots as a matter of fact one of my own third great grandfathers always reported his parents as being born in Pennsylvania until he was in his late 60s when in the 1920s census he finally reported them as being from Ireland and his mother's native tongue as being Irish I guess as he got older like many of us he just didn't care what other people thought anymore for some reason we as humans are attracted to what is often called the lost cause the Lost Cause isn't my theory but it's similar to why it is said that many people want to relate to the Confederate States Native American tribes poor Hillbillies or even the Civil Rights Movement for some we have a longing and a desire to relate to those who struggled and overcame more than we do to those that had it easier I encourage everyone to do the research or have someone like me do it for you to discover your ancestors and where they came from only then will you truly know I know that I've contradicted myself a few times in this video I told you that you weren't Irish I've told you that you were Irish and I'm even told that you were kind of Irish so which is it each of us must find out the truth for ourselves and if you conclude that I was right and you don't have Irish roots well I think I speak for most when I say we'd be glad to have you celebrate with us anyway especially on St Patrick's Day oh and if you're lucky enough to discover your Irish ancestors and where they come from I hope you get to visit their hometowns like I was lucky enough to do visiting the map dot town that my direct male ancestor lived in when he immigrated was one of my most cherished and Powerful experiences I of course documented it in a video as well by the way all the videos that I referred to in this video I will put links in a description of this video for you to find quickly so what do you think now that I have busted so many people's bubble about their false Irish Roots I'm curious to hear your thoughts please leave a comment below what you think positive or negative I'm confident that many of you will refuse to buy into what I said and will look for ways to refute it so many of us have heard the myth of being Irish all our lives and literally get depressed when we find out that we don't have a drop of anything but English Scottish or even German blood just because someone wants to be Irish doesn't make them Irish no more than me wanting to be a billionaire makes me one like I said earlier be proud of Who You Are and all of your ancestors find ways to celebrate them and they will become your true identity and remember family tree nuts let our nuts find the nuts in your family tree [Music]

Channel: Family Tree Nuts, History & Genealogy Service

Views: 250,407

Keywords: Irish, Ireland, Scottish, English, Scots Irish, Scotch Irish, Scotch, Great Britian, Brittish, Clan, Patrick, Saint Patrick's Day, Saint Patricks Day, St. Patricks Day, St. Patrick's Day, Saint Paddy, Saint Paddy's, St. Paddy, St. Paddy's, Saint Patties, History, Ancestry, Genealogy, Family Tree Nuts, Colonel Carson, Col Russ Carson Jr, Russ Carson Jr, immigration, immigrants, ancestors, roots, family roots, US History, Irish History, Celtic, Celtic Roots, American history, HIstory

Id: PsxNorT798U

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023