See the latest posts @WhyScottish
Tea Fundraiser Sept. 30, 2018
(Photo by Melinda Sigal)
Burns Dinner, Jan. 26, 2018
(Photo by Tisara Photography)
William Gregory's grave marker: William Gregory. Born in Kilmarnock, Scotland March 3, 1789. Died July 13, 1875.
Map of Scotland, showing where the Highlands actually are, and the lowlands.
Most Scots see their country divided up this way, I have found when I asked them.
A Scottish Migration to Alexandria, 2nd Edition
The
Book
The Second Edition of the book is in print and available! You can order it at YellowDotShop.com. The first edition was published October 28, 2021, and it sold out by the Summer of 2022. In Britain, the first edition is available HERE.
Description:
The United States of America began as a colony of the Kingdom of Britain. The first immigrants to this "New World" were Britons. One of the largest groups to arrive came from Scotland. "A Scottish Migration to Alexandria" is the history of how so many Scots left Britain, told through the experience of William Gregory, and the two places at each end of his journey; the city of Kilmarnock in the Lowlands of Scotland, and Alexandria, Virginia in the newly formed United States of America.
Most people think of the romantic Highlands as the place our ancestors came from. And many did. But the purpose of this documentary is to explore where the majority of Scots migrated from - the Lowlands of Scotland. Most Americans of Scottish descent don't know where their ancestors came from, why they left, and on what ship and where they arrived. These details have been lost to the generations. This film tells why the Scottish Lowlands became so crowded, and what life was like there. The reasons that caused people to leave everything they knew, climb aboard a crowded ship, and sail in unspeakable squalor for many weeks to start a new life, penniless, in an unforgiving land.
One man, William Gregory, left his family's carpet factory in Kilmarnock in 1807. He boarded a wooden sailing ship and sailed to America. William found work and a home in Alexandria, Virginia. Letters written home to his family in Kilmarnock and letters to America tell the story of this migration.
Ellen Hamilton shows us the cities of Kilmarnock in Ayrshire and Greenock at the mouth of the River Clyde where so many people left from, never to return.
Hamilton interviews the Scottish author Derek Alexander in the 600 year old, beautifully preserved Newark Castle, by the River Clyde, to learn about how that area became a major seaport for Glasgow.
Lance Malamo, former head of the Office of Historic Alexandria talks about how William Gregory began his life in Alexandria. Author Michael Lee Pope talks about what life was like in early Alexandria. Americans of Scottish descent are interviewed, to find out how much they know of their family's past.