Here are some of my views on the questions: Anglo-Irish: Yes, there was such a term and group of people in Ireland. Goes way back. In the 1100's Henry I (I think it was the first), grandson of William the Conqueror bounced over to Ireland and "conquered" Ireland. Little English control was established over most of the Island, but the King's army, civil administrators, and other Englishmen settled in some numbers around Dublin. The around around Dublin became known and the "Pale" or "English Pale" and the people there called them "Anglo-Irish" to distinguish themselves from the native Irish. By the time of migrations from the British Isles to the American Colonies in the 1600's, the population of the "Anglo-Irish" had grown quite a bit, concentrated around Dublin, but also scattered out in smaller groups throughout Ireland. The vast majority of these people converted to Church of England (called in Ireland the Church of Ireland, what we usually call Episcopal today in America) after Henry VIII did his thing with the church. Irish in British Colonies: During the 1600's and 1700's relatively few native Irish or Catholic Irish came to America. Primarily because they were extremely poor and could not afford the passage and viewed in the prejudice and culture of the times as not a good risk as an indentured servants. Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Germans were plentifully available as endentured servants and preferred. In general anyone arriving in the American colonies from Ireland, were labeled as "Irish" by American already here. So in the 1600's through about 1718 most of the "Irish" immigrants to America were from the "Anglo-Irish" as well as some early northerners of Scots heritage. Starting in 1718 there began a flood of immigrants to British America from Ireland, mostly Presbyterian Irish of Scot heritage from the north of Ireland. Those we now refer to as Scots-Irish. There were certainly some Catholic Irish mixed in, but most were Protestant Irish. It wasn't until the Potato Famine of the 1840's when large numbers of desperately poor Catholic Irish began flooding to America than those already here of Irish Protestant (mostly Scot) heritage began referring to themselves as Scots-Irish to differentiate themselves from the Catholic Native Irish. In an earlier message Libbie Griffin wrote: > Kathleen, you raise an issue that has long interested me, and one I think > has been little researched: that is about early immigrants from Ireland. In > labeling people "Anglican Irish" (a term I don't believe I've ever heard > before) do you mean Scots-Irish? If not, could you please detail whom you > mean to describe with that term? > > I have noted a great many early Virginians with Irish-sounding names, and it > has long been my belief that many people emigrated from Ireland to early > Virginia, perhaps by way of somewhere in England or Scotland. Because the > great preponderance of Irish were/are Catholic, I suspect these people were > born and baptized in the Catholic church. Because there was no Catholic > church in early Virginia, and because of their relatively powerless position > at the bottom of the social hierarchy, they would have been unable to > continue to worship within the Catholic church. To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-roots.html