Is anybody here descended from Scottish families who left Scotland because of

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53. Thanks for mentioning this -- I hadn't considered the role of the Clearances in my family history

It might help me trace one apparently Scots-Irish line that I've traced back to the Cumberland valley in Pennsylvania in 1756. I've assumed they were Scots-Irish, since our earliest ancestor on that side fought in the militia from Antrim Township (named after County Antrim) during the Revolutionary War.

I've been looking primarily at Northern Irish history to try to understand and dig out their story, but it's possible that the Clearances played a role in the timing of their migration to North America. My earliest traced ancestor in that line was born in the Cumberland only 10 years after Culloden.

The family name on that side appears all over the British Isles (and in fact, I have at least one unrelated English line with the same name), but when found in Scotland, seems like it's usually associated with lowland and border Scots.

The Clearances primarily affected Highland Scots, as I understand it, but I wonder if the pressure from ongoing migrations out of Scotland (to Northern Ireland) helped push my Lowland Scot family to the new world?