The publication in 2024 of the two-volume Scottish Soldiers in Colonial America, by Dr. David Dobson, marks the third consolidated edition of Dr. Dobson’s works issued in recent years. The Scottish Soldiers collection identifies over 10,000 Scottish soldiers who served in the Americas, many of whom fought in the French and Indian War and/or the American Revolution. Each soldier named in this collection is pinned down to a specific date and place in the Americas. Furthermore, the consolidated edition boasts a complete name index, making it much easier for researchers to find all other details found in the soldier descriptions (family members, ships captains, college attended, etc.).
In 2022, Genealogical.com released Scots-Irish Links, 1525-1825: Consolidated and Indexed Edition. Originally published in 15 unindexed parts, the merged, indexed edition substantially reduces the time required to discover one’s Scots-Irish forebears. Many of the persons so identified were young men from Ireland–many bearing Scottish surnames–attending universities in Scotland. In a number of cases Dr. Dobson is also able to provide information on the man or woman’s spouse, children, local origins, landholding, and, of course, the source of the information. While there is no certainty that each of the persons identified in these volumes, or their descendants, ultimately emigrated to America, undoubtedly many did or possessed kinsmen who did.
In 2023, we introduced the one-volume consolidated edition of the ten-part series, Irish Emigrants in North America. As with the Scots-Irish and Scottish Soldiers titles above, we have added a comprehensive index of names to facilitate the reader’s search through all ten Parts. The author has arranged this list of roughly 8,500 emigrants alphabetically in each of the ten parts of this work by the individual’s surname and, in most cases, provides most of the following particulars: age, name of ship, occupation in Ireland, reason for and the source of the information. Sometimes the entries also specify the emigrant’s place of origin in Ireland, place of disembarkation in the New World, date of arrival, and names or number of other persons in the household. About 95% of the individuals named in Irish Emigrants in North America left the Emerald Isle before the Great Famine of the 1840s.
In short, any researcher or institution that devotes time and resources to the study of British and Irish history or genealogy, should consider acquiring these easy-to-use and chockful sources of otherwise inaccessible information. Each title is available as a complete set, or by individual volume.
