Our Scots-Irish Bradford Line

Picture: County Down, Ireland

[Please forgive my long absence...a move, the holidays, and many other things intervened, but I hope to be back to writing at least a once-a-week post, and you all are invited to contribute, too!]

As descendants of William Miller and his wife, Rebecca Bradford Miller, we have the distinction of descending from two completely different ancestors named Samuel Bradford--one is Rebecca's father, and one is her grandfather on her mother's side..."no relation" according to the Allen Family Record, a quite reliable source we quote from often in this blog.

Rebecca's grandfather (whom we have affectionately dubbed "Red Lion Sam" as he lived in Red Lion Hundred in Newcastle County, Delaware) is proving to be an extremely difficult research subject, and we cannot as yet with certainty say anything about his heritage. Was he Scots-Irish, of English descent, or [be still our hearts] a descendant of The Governor? Only time will tell, we hope!

But it is with near certainty that we can say Rebecca's father was of Scots-Irish origin (see post dated September 1, 2009, entitled "Rebecca's Uncle James Bradford."

While we have not yet identified from which village in Northern Ireland our Bradfords haled, the entry below confirms that persons with this name were part of the migration from Scotland to Ulster:

"A well planned plantation of Ulster began in 1609, involving the introduction to the province of thousands of settlers. These were brought in by adventurers who, in return for title to the land, brought in a specified number of settlers to their estates. One Scottish adventurer, James Hamilton, brought over ten thousand Scots to northwest Down, Scottish names such as Boyd, Fraser, Johnston, Lindsay, Morrison, Patterson and Maxwell are consequently common in Down. English adventurers in Down who brought over English families included Annesleu, Hill and Montgomery. These settlers brought the names Wilson, Johnson, Young, Taylor, Walker, Jackson, Watson, Bradshaw, and Bradford to Ulster." Source: (http://www.rootsweb.com/~fianna/county/down.html)

For a good general history of the plantations of Northern Ireland, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantations_of_Ireland and http://www.libraryireland.com/ScotchIrishAmerica/I.php

It will be thrilling day when we find the exact village in Ireland that Rebecca's father side came from, and an even more thrilling day if we can trace that line back to their origins in Scotland. Let's all join in the search, and hopefully that day will come sooner rather than later.

*I use the term Scots-Irish as opposed to Scotch-Irish, as it is the preferred term [at least by the Scots themselves!].