Sooooo confused
One of the first things I saw in Ireland was this:
Who knew there were palm trees in Ireland? I certainly didn’t.
And then one of our side trips took us to Newgrange. What a wonderful site. I’m so glad my traveling companions made arrangements for this excursion. This mound is older than the pyramids and I got to go inside!
On the way to Newgrange, our terrific tour guide Mary read us an article from the Irish Times entitled “No Petty People, the Ulster Presbyterians,” published 15 May 2007. She read it to us as we traveled through the Boyne Valley, beside and across the River Boyne, scene of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. One of those battles I’d probably read about in some history class, but it only came alive to me when I was there and hearing about the Ulster Presbyterians, aka the Scots-Irish, in the article.
These folks came to America in the early 1700s, were largely Protestant, particularly Presbyterian, and worked the land. I’ve come to believe that Christopher Osborne was probably Scots-Irish–he’s found in western North Carolina before 1750, he’s Presbyterian, and he worked hard to acquire land. That, of course, does not prove the issue, but it does provide some clues. I think I remember my dad saying some of his family were Scots (he said “Scotch”) Irish–honestly, I don’t know if he was talking about his father’s Osborne line or his mother’s Cooper and Landrum lines. I do believe the Landrums were from Scotland, however, not necessarily via Ireland, according to the research of others that I’ve read. The earliest Coopers we’ve found in our line were in Hampshire County, WV and Maryland.
I have read both James Leyburn’s The Scotch Irish: A Social History (1962) and David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history). The latter uses the term “borderers” rather an “Scots Irish,” and notes that these folks have substantial Anglo-Saxon and Viking and/or Scandinavian heritage–again, this matches what the Christopher Osborne DNA test reveals. Fischer says,
Some historians describe these immigrants as “Ulster Irish” or “Northern Irish.” It is true that many sailed from the province of Ulster… part of much larger flow which drew from the lowlands of Scotland, the north of England, and every side of the Irish Sea. Many scholars call these people “Scotch-Irish.” That expression is an Americanism, rarely used in Britain and much resented by the people to whom it was attached. …”
So I have more work to do–learning more about the “borderers,” the Scots Irish, and determining what, if any records exist of their migration. The better I understand the people and their history, the more clues I’ll find in the pitifully small amount of information known about Christopher.
Despite finding palm trees in Ireland and learning more about what I don’t know, I think I can move on. 
I know enough about the nature of information to know that the more you know, the more you want to know–sort of a variation on the genealogist’s old saw, “You get one question answered and then you have at least 2 more.”
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