From: Monte Davis 

This thread reminds me tangentially how much I recently enjoyed _Albion's
Seed_, by David Hackett Fischer. He traces four bursts of emigration from
UK to America :

1. ~21,000 "Puritans" in the 1630s to New England -- heavily from
Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, bits of E. Lincolnshire and Kent

2. ~45,000 "Cavaliers" 1645-1665 to the Chesapeake -- heavily
from "a triangle stretching from the Weald of Kent to Devon and north
to Warwickshire"

3. ~25,000 "Friends" 1680-1710 to the Delaware Valley -- heavily
from Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire

4. ~250,000 "Borderers" to the back country and Appalachians 1720-1770
-- heavily from northernmost England, Scottish lowlands, N. Ireland.

He's far from the first to identify these, but he emphasizes that they were
concentrated enough in space (where they came from and settled) and time to
preserve and propagate their "folkways" -- everything from idioms
to architecture to marriage customs to social hierarchy. They set four
"ways of being American" that you can trace through westward
migration well into the 20th century, in regional culture and politics
and... what can only be called "personal style" that is still
identifiable under all the later immigrations and mixing.

You UK types could see it on a US map, with Haverhills and Sudburys and
Maldons spreading south of the Great Lakes... Bristols and Warwicks across
Kentucky and along the Gulf coast... Bradfords and Richmonds and Chesters
across Pennsylvania to Ohio... Cumberlands and Carlisles and ---kirks all
over the SE hinterland to the Mississippi.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5