"Hillbilly Elegy"

[BmorePat87]

(09-23-2020, 12:22 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Good to know you're willing to stereotype.


Were your Virginian ancestors Scots/Irish or German? Being that the northern part was more German and the southern part more Scots/Irish, I'm guessing German but it could go either way. There is a dividing line in the Shenandoah Valley which is the border between Augusta and Rockingham counties.

Mostly Scots-Irish and some distant English way back (there's a family name "Jarman" from Kent, England became "German" after a generation in Virginia). Not sure if they became Catholic when they moved to MD in the 1910's or if there were some Irish Catholics in the lineage along with the Protestant Scots-Irish.

My grandmother's maiden name is the line that's most interesting. Everyone with this last name originates from one man without any parents. Family story was he was either found abandoned by the shore or on a boat and given his last name based on that. But after some time in Chester, PA, he went to Fauquier County and they stayed there for nearly 200 years, so that follows the traditional path of a Scots-Irish settler at the time.