: John
: I am trying to seed a discussion on some original
: thoughts on the Caldwell Family. You have done well to
: debunk some of the wilder myths I have seen generally
: circulating in the US. Obviously someone had a very
: fertile imagination and those listening to him/her
: hadn't realised that they had gone "ga-ga"
: and it has been repeated without question for
: generations.

Well, I'm sure that you can tell by this site that we are in agreement on many, many things.

: With due respect for the researchers in the US - very few
: of them go back past their original ancestor who
: arrived from overseas. When they go back further it is
: usually to Ireland.

We agree again! I can only verify back to Joseph Caldwell of Westmoreland, Co., PA in the mid-1700s. Other than that, all I have to go on besides clues here and there are generations of my family before me stating that we "are Scotch-Irish", hence my research of Ireland and the Planter Caldwells looking for more clues to work my way to the middle.

: Ireland was probably just a "stop-over"
: destination for some generations after originally
: leaving Scotland.

I don't think that all came from Ireland. I used to know a Caldwell here in Los Angeles who claimed Welch ancestory, and another who said his family was from Holland. Now, of course a lot of that comes down to "what years?", but for the most part, I don't think that Ireland was any sort of central exit point or staging area. I think there's more relativity to time and space as to when any line ventured out into the world.

: Most were impoverished and left Ireland for the USA in
: tumultuous times. They most likely had little time of
: inclination to pay attention to their family history
: but they clung to their religion.

I agree that there probably wasn't time for genealogy for the families of those times, but I'd disagree that all left due to poverty, although I'm sure that many did.

With religion and politics being inseperable at the time, I'd venture to guess that many left religious persecution, or at least the constant battles over religion and all the tangents that go with it.

Some of those going to America in the mid-1600s may have been captured in battle by Cromwell and shipped off into servitude. Some coming in the early 1700s may have just had enough fighting over religion and had lost too much to do it all over again in the same place. And some coming later may have been fleeing famine and poverty.

: There is very little specific information generally
: available about Caldwell's of note and what there is
: is repeated over and over again - without anything
: else to cling to it is easy to see oneself as being
: descendent from the same remote ancestor.
: The fact is that there are mentions of Caldwell's in the
: Mauchline area in the 1500's. Paisley as early as the
: 1200's. In the English Midlands in the 1500's. Around
: Kilmarnock, Ayr, Irvine, Straiton (as we know :-)),
: Maybole, Lochwinnoch, Paisley, Beith, Glasgow, etc in
: the 1600's.
: The late Lesley Anne Gordon (herself a Caldwell)
: painstakingly made extracts of old wills and I now
: have many of them: for example that of John Caldwell
: "in McDonnalie" died 1615; Robert Caldwell
: of Nether Hessilhead died 1619. This is reasonably
: serious stuff and goes beyond the "can you help
: me locate Uncle Sylvestor" type of research.
: I also do not claim to have any links to powerful ancient
: Scottish Caldwell ancestors - my earliest found
: ancestors were coalminers - generally regarded as the
: lowest of the low. ... but perhaps there was a black
: sheep there somewhere ... :-)

Black sheep? I though all you Aussies were just Irish who got caught. lol....

As for my line, the Jospeh which I go back to in America was a Quaker. I don't know if he became Quaker, which would be my (somewhat educated) guess as his son who I descend from was Presbyterian. Now, "my" Joseph's wife came from a long line of Quakers, and it seems that other men of my (extended) "family" switched religion a few times for women .

For the most part, though, I come from a line of farmers. A true "three brothers" story, my great great grandfather and two of his brothers were early settlers of Iowa, and family members still own and farm the original 1855 family homestead.

Maybe we can get Plunkett Caldwell from N.IRE to join in on this conversation. He's done considerable research on Ulster Caldwells for some years, and I'm sure would have a lot to add.