May I repeat my belief that there was no such thing as Virginia 'citizenship' prior to the Revolutionary War. All Americans were, I think, British subjects equal to people born in the UK.  There was at that time no subsidiary or parallel concept of local citizenship. They were British subjects when they left Virginia and would have had to take whatever loyalty oath the Virginians required, if any, when they returned, still British subjects in law.


As a matter of no interest but I simple feel like it, I was born in Australia in 1937 of families who arrived in Tasmania in 1821 and mid 1850s in Victoria and South Australia, all from the UK. My legal status was British subject. It was not until the 1960s that changes in Australian law made me an Australian citizen and still later that the British changed the centuries old rules about British subjects. I am, apparently, no longer a British subject. Long live the revolution that never happened.


When I now arrive in the UK, despite unbroken British ethnicity on both sides of my family for ever, I am now a complete foreigner which many Australians with backgrounds like me, find irritating because it takes so much longer to go through immigration. It is all the more interesting because my grandfather was born in the UK and that gives me nominal patriality which is worth zilch in practice today. A visit to the US one time confused immigration at LA because I had an academic visa on an official Aust Govt passport. That brought about a bigger delay that even the English could have thought up. And that was before today's immigration challenges.


Tracing one's family is an interesting venture. I am bewildered how people who lived for centuries within a few miles of ancestral origins managed to summon up the courage to take the trip to Australia, a journey of many months compared to the relative  short time of crossing the Atlantic. 


The Scottish branch took 200 years to move from Stirling to near Edinburgh. I guess they were never in a hurry. It was two young daughters, one a rapscallion of just sixteen, who came to Australia and married an Englishman, thereby becoming my gggmother. I rejoice that she was apparently in frequent trouble with the local police, probably Irishmen, and was convicted a couple of times for disorderly behaviour and abuse. In between, she mothered eight kids, mostly daughters but including my gfather whose mother was of solid Barnsley stoneworking stock who came to South Australia to build things, including prisons. 


My Irish gm, on my mother's side, married the bloke mentioned above and was a pillar of the church. She was of Irish Catholic stock somewhere way back but the family anglicized at some point and became ardent evangelical Protestants.


Like most of the Australians with 19C origins, I am a mix of everything possible, including Cornish, English, Irish, Scottish, etc etc. Unlike the US there was only small non-British migrations to Australia, until post 1950, Now we are, I believe, the most ethnically mixed country in the world, so quite a change and, let me say enthusiastically, definitely for the better. 


Anyway, all y'all, av a nice day.


Ian Welch, Canberra


PS Don't think any of my relatives went to America, but who knows?


Ian Welch, Canberra




----- Original Message -----
From: James Burnett <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009 0:21
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Loyalty Oath
To: [log in to unmask]

> Thanks Linda
> Douglas Burnett
> Satellite Beach
> FL
> 
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Linda Steele 
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> > The wife, daughter, and son should have acquired Virginia 
> citizenship by
> > being born here. Unless they specifically renounced their Virginia
> > citizenship to become British subjects during or after the 
> Revolutionary> War, they were still Virginians upon their 
> return. I think citizenship at
> > the time was by state, not the United States.
> >
> > Linda Steele
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of James Burnett
> > Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 4:39 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: [VA-HIST] Loyalty Oath
> >
> > Good Evening All
> > I have a question wrt passports/immigration.  I have a 
> Virginia born
> > ancestor who married a British born Doctor in Va prior to 
> 1775.  When the
> > Revolution began the Dr was a Loyalist and he, his wife, son, 
> and daughter
> > returned to England. The Dr then returned to New York in a 
> British uniform
> > and died there. Subsequent to the war his wife, daughter and 
> son, after he
> > graduated from Edinburgh Medical School returned to Va in 
> 1792. On their
> > return would they have been treated as immigrants even though 
> all were born
> > in Va? Would they have had to take an oath of loyalty?
> > Just to put a name on this law they were the McCaws and there 
> were 5
> > generations of physicians in the Richmond Va area from this line.
> > Thanks in advance
> > Douglas Burnett
> > Satellite Beach
> > FL
> >
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