5 Two studies yield the following estimates of Scottish and Irish surnames in the census of 1790.
State |
McDonald |
Purvis |
Me. |
|
|
N.H. |
|
|
Vt. |
|
|
Mass. |
|
|
R.I. |
|
|
Conn. |
|
|
N.Y. |
|
|
N.J. |
|
|
Pa. |
|
|
Del. |
|
|
Md. |
|
|
Va. |
|
|
N.C. |
|
|
s.c. |
|
|
Ga. |
|
|
Ky. |
|
|
Tenn. |
|
|
In addition, during the mid-18th century at least one-fourth (or more) of all English settlers in the backcountry came from six northern counties. If we average the estimates of Purvis and McDonald and add 25% of the English population, then the combined total of Scottish, Protestant Irish and northern English settlers was more than 51% of whites in North Carolina, and more than 53% in South Carolina, ca. 1790. These data refer to entire colonies including coastal districts; in the backcountry, the proportion was above 60%. See Forrest McDonald and Ellen Shapiro McDonald, “The Ethnic Origins of the American People, 1790,” WMQ3 38 (1980), 179-99; Purvis, “The European Ancestry of the United States Population, 1790,” 85-101; John B. Sanderlin, “Ethnic Origins of Early Kentucky Land Grantees,” KSHSR 85 (1987), 103-10.