Hacker News Reader

Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

"Their conclusions were that while almost all African Americans are racially mixed, and many have family stories of Native heritage, usually these stories turn out to be inaccurate, with only 5 percent of African American people showing more than 2 percent Native American ancestry. Gates summarized these statistics to mean that, "If you have 2 percent Native American ancestry, you had one such ancestor on your family tree five to nine generations back (150 to 270 years ago)." Their findings also concluded that the most common "non-black" mix among African Americans is English and Scots-Irish."

View on HN

Just as an aside, I feel like "Scots-Irish" is a fairly uniquely American phrase which you don't really hear in Scotland or Ireland. There are a couple of possible interpretations and always I wonder which is meant:

1. Ulster-Scots, i.e. the Scottish people who moved into northern part of Ireland (now all of Northern Ireland plus a couple of counties in Ireland)

2. Some Irish and some Scottish, i.e. they have ancestors from both places and want a word to describe this

3. Generally celtic, i.e. they know it's Ireland or Scotland or maybe both and want to cover their bases

Neither is particularly harmful, but I kind of wish some people understood that #1 is a distinct thing

The overwhelmingly most common usage is #1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans).

Right so this is what I meant. I've seen a few people proudly declaring their Scotch-Irish ancestry and in the same breath cursing those awful Brits who colonised Ireland (without realising that is technically the ancestors they are proud of). Like I'm not expecting anyone to be ashamed or anything, but a little awareness goes a long way and can save a few awkward situations

> a little awareness goes a long way and can save a few awkward situations

if society ever gets this right about northern ireland it will be a good day for everyone :)

There's a reason why hillbillies are hillbillies, and it's not just because it sounds good.

(People in those parts of the country are disproportionately likely to be Scotch-Irish, and therefore to have an ancestor who named a child after William III).

Interesting, that's a new one on me! Thanks

(Ricardo Montalban opens cigar box.) "Cuban?"

It was a distinct cultural group who were largely outcasts in both Scotland and Ireland, and lived in certain specific areas of both nations. The majority left for north America because of their treatment in the British Isles.

This is covered in significant detail in "Albion's Seed", among others.

I know what they were. My point is that many people use this and don't seem to properly understand it and appear to be think that it means definition #2 or #3. See the example I gave: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29992408

Reply on news.ycombinator.com