Companion to "St. Patrick's in the Peaks: Distinguishing Ulster-Scots from Irish Migration"
The green ribbons and shamrocks of St. Patrick's Day are a clue that matters deeply to Appalachian family researchers. One family tracing its roots to the mountains may be Ulster-Scots who arrived through Philadelphia and the Great Wagon Road a century before the Civil War. Another may be Gaelic Irish who came to the coalfields during the Famine era, shaped by Catholicism, company towns, and labor solidarity. These groups stood in the same mountains but did not share the same history, the same religion, or the same paper trail. Confusing one for the other sends you to the wrong archive and the wrong country. This companion gives you the tools to tell them apart. Includes a twelve-characteristic Side-by-Side Comparison, an Ancestor Identification Worksheet with an eight-clue Migration Stream Evidence Checklist, a paired Ulster-Scots and Gaelic Irish record guide with specific repositories for each, and a Migration Routes and Settlement Patterns reference covering four Ulster-Scots routes and Gaelic Irish entry points by port and industrial draw.