Throw an egg from a bus almost anywhere in America and the chances are you’ll hit someone claims “Scots-Irish” or “Scottish Highlands” ancestry, often without understanding the terms fully, and shot through with myth as to the reasons for emigrating (persecution, clearances, etc.). The reality is that most emigration was voluntary, for purely economic gain, and from the Lowlands. The Scots were the economic migrants par excellence of their day. They came to America in various waves, for various reasons, and ended up in various places.