There are so many special things about this region such as the folk art that are being lost to the modern world. I give Dolly Parton a whole lot of credit for helping preserve the mountain culture by bringing a revenue stream to Pigeon Forge. I remember when I was little this was barely a stop on the road to Gatlinburg. Now its a tourist attraction in and of itself bringing income to many of the poorer families around those parts.
I am ulster Scots and I would have moved there to retire but that's not to be. I love the people the music I have a bit of history with the scots irish my Wife's great great great ect Grandad was Andrew Jacksons snr next door neighbours, her family's house is the Jackson centre in Carrickfergus .Co.Antrim UK.
My mom grew up eating possum and squirrel in a poor holler in East Tennessee. My grandmother lived in a shack in the mountains of Kentucky with 12 other siblings and a single mother. My grandfather as a 12 year old ran moonshine with his father. I don’t know how much more hillbilly you can get. I’m delighted by this video and your exploration of our history!
I’m from West Virginia and used to live pretty far out where Appalachian culture thrived. This is pretty cool to see my family and friends and me in some ways represented away from stereotypes. Thank you for this video.
I’m Cherokee through both my mother and father, and I am an enrolled tribal member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. My matrilineal Cherokee ancestors came to Oklahoma from North Georgia willingly as part of the western early settlers, and my paternal Cherokee ancestors were from Tennessee before the Trail of Tears. Many Cherokees here in Oklahoma return back to Appalachia and have this unexplainable feeling. It’s been hundreds of years since our ancestors left their homelands, but there’s still this amazing feeling of connection to the land, like your soul never left. It’s a spiritual place. I’m proud to come from the original Appalachians.
@hitman.radio30 yeah it’s almost as if DNA testing databases rely on population samples. Most Natives have not submitted their DNA to genetic databases. And being Native American is not exclusively about appearance, it’s also about the continuation of our cultures and languages. I practice my Cherokee culture and language every day. Imagine trying to be a race scientist to invalidate modern Native people lmao. Sorry colonization failed to assimilate us and that we’ve held onto our identities despite everything (I’m not sorry, get fucked).
@hitman.radio30 your comment is suggesting that DNA percentages are meaningful. Also suggesting that a persons ethnic appearance has anything to do with ancestral connection and pride. We live on stolen land. Our european ancestors might have settled in Appalachia but our concepts of who is Appalachian is erasure of Native culture.
It's been said that in the early days of Appalachia, the English would first build a church, the Germans would build a barn, and the Scots-Irish would build a still.
I’m An African American from Tennessee. Nashville to be exact. But I have family in East Tenn. Around I say Knoxville and the Tri City’s. And I’ll tell you it’s quite a few black family’s that’s been running some stills for multiple generations and make a damn good shine too. I know a couple personally. I just did my AncestryDNA a few months ago and I came back 79% percent Sub Saharan and 21% European. And the biggest percentage of my euro was 9% Scottish. I’m only 4% Irish. The rest was English Wales and Sweden Norway and Germanic people. I have no clue how the later came in my dna. But what I can say is it was some mixing going on in Appalachia. Not only making shine but dna 🧬 wise too. 😆. But I enjoy the yearly trips East we always have a great time and drink homemade brew. And the food is ridiculous. Appalachia had some of the best cooking in the country. Don’t let them stereotypes fool ya.
@@mordekaishekelbergiv.4211 Yes I’ve been reading about that. And I’ve come to realize Anglo Saxons Swedish and Norwegian people are all Germanic people. At one point the Anglo saxons invaded the British isle a few hundred years before the Vikings did. The Anglo saxons left a way bigger mark than the Vikings dna wise on the isles . But the Vikings still had a major impact on culture. Same as they did with the Beginnings of Russia Normandy and quite a few other places. And I don’t think I was created out just slavery. I know slavery was more than likely a part of my Lineage. But I also know of couple scots Irish and black families that lived amongst each other in the mountains up in East Tennessee. Some of them intermingled and created what would become part of my lineage. I believe these scots Irish descendants of mines carried Germanic/Viking dna to America and mixed with my black American ancestors. Some of the mixed ones moved to the Nashville area around a 100 or so years ago and settled in old hickory/hermitage and Franklin/Thompson station Tennessee. And here I am now born in Nashville Tn.My grandma has a pic of my great great uncle who looked like a white man around the late 18 early 19 hundreds. But he was mixed. I know all this may seem complicated but I’ve been researching and things have become very interesting. My mom my sister one of my uncles and a first and second cousin of mines have red hair and green eyes. Every other child comes out with this trait. My highest percentage is Nigerian at 36% which I love. Makes me feel connected with that country especially. My second highest is Cameroon Congo western Bantu peoples. Overall I’m a mut but I love everything about me and would like to visit all the countries my ancestors come from. From Lagos to London ghana Scotland. Everyone on this earth is mixed with something. No one is a 100% this or that. I have love for all people. But at the end of the day ima proud black American
@@bigsouth010 ,WOW!!! I love that you know so much about your ancestry! And not just the Caucasian aspect. It's so hard for us African Americans to really learn about our African ancestry and Heritage because of slavery and the lack of Records. Of course DNA testing has made Leaps and Bounds with helping us to learn more. But not enough for us to pinpoint exact ancestors unfortunately unless people from those regions have also taken DNA tests and can be traced back to us. I am African-American, French Canadian (AKA, Cajun/Creole) and Irish. Recently I found out that I also have quite a bit of Native American ancestry as well. I found out that my father's great-grandmother was Mississippi Choctaw on his mother's side, and his great-grandmother on his father's side was Cherokee and Blackfoot. And I have absolutely no idea whereabouts from Africa my ancestors hailed. I haven't been able to do any research in terms of either of my non-caucasian ancestries yet, but I have learned a lot about my Caucasian ancestry. In fact my grandmother on my mother's side still went to visit family in Ireland up until she passed away about 10 years ago. Anyway, I'd love to hear more about what you know about your lineage and the steps you took to learn about it!
Appalachia also has a history of having its resources extracted with very little of the profits going back into the communities. People love to look down their nose at it for perceived poverty and ignorance but they dont know how much that whole region has been exploited and stereotyped for decades.
To be fair most coal miners get paid pretty well. One thing that I do find curious is that despite a lot of natural gas coming from Eastern Kentucky (where I live) most residential properties in our area don’t even have access to it. Most of it used commercially around here and I guess some of it is sent up north where they need it worse than we do.
I know the people struggle because they give too much from themselves to the community and as a result, they don't have enough to do more for themselves. I appreciate this because I also live this. It is probably because I am one of you. I lived the life too. What I do know that makes our struggle proper is, we choose to help each other and we do not sanction the gov't to force it. The gov't has a spelled out purpose in the constitution. We as people have our own spelled out constitutions that never was written down because it is doesn't need to be written. It is in our spirits and in our souls. We don't need the gov't to help us we need the gov't to stop spending time mopping up our tears and to start actually having value. the gov't should not be a burden on the people. the people should be allowed to expect the gov't to serve the people. ALL and not some of the citizens.
This was really interesting! I’m from the Appalachian region and just learned about how a woman of the scots-Irish migration married a native of the region. I used to be embarrassed of the accent and culture as a highschooler and only recently have began to appreciate and embrace it more.
Yes, please don't fall for the portrayal that big gov. wants everyone to think of when they think of having the option to live independently of the system. It's a psyop. Big gov. wants everyone in cities so they can have full control.
It is a beautiful language but people have a hard time understanding the actual accent. It was hard for me growing up just outside the area but my family being from deep in the mountains so I had it but nobody I went to school with did so I actually had to teach myself a more proper southern. Its just so hard to drop a phrase without the accent without thinking about it though.
As a lifelong West Virginia resident the trait that stands out most to me about my heritage is the fierce independence of my grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression and how it influenced their lives . Not much was wasted on their farm and those lessons still influence me today.
Where my family is from! Love it there! Parkersburg is where my grandmother and grandfather and their families grew up ever since coming to the US. We are Irish, Russian, English, and a very little bit African too. The funny part is my grandfather was a coal miner after his service with the navy and then he came up here to Alaska to do the same thing! 😂
Javier Peralta Everyone gets that wrong. You’re thinking of Kentucky. First cousins is not legal in WV. What kind of person are you to come in and turn a conversation negative?
I was born in Appalachian Virginia as the 5th of ten children. My mother turned 21 - 3 1/2 months after my birth. Before I started school, my mother instigated our moving in with relatives in Roanoke Virginia. Before my 2nd year of school my mother instigated another move further north to the Shenandoah valley. Eventually there were ten of us brothers and sisters. The ending of my story could not be better. Because my mother was so strong willed, every one of her ten children graduated from college.
I just moved from NYC area, to Roanoke area! Franklin County. It's an amazing place, with some of the kindest, most caring folk that I have ever met. I have begun to become a kinder person, after the move, to be honest. I do think that the quality of human being, here, has to do with the attendance at church, something the north is generally lacking. I don't say this because it has to be anything Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or any relegion, to have a positive effect on the soul, and personality, but simply answering to a higher authority, it honestly helps an area to be more of a positive, kindly, place to be. I like it much better here, because I try to live positively, not because I'm religious...
To give an idea of Appalachian culture... my friend's father grew up in Western Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 60s. They burned coal for heat and had an outhouse. In the winter if no one in the family successfully killed a deer then there was no meat for dinner. He went onto college and became the principal at a prestigious private high school. He also taught us endless lessons about the outdoors, hunting and foraging.
My husband grew up in Arkansas eating game. It was a way to survive because of the lack of jobs. Appalachia had the natural resources. It's sad that they didn't reap the large monetary benefits of the coal industry.
My grandfather was a Ukrainian coal miner in Western Pennsylvania. There were lots of Ukrainians coal mining in Western Pennsylvania. You haven't mentioned any.
@@jackiemack8653 Southwestern Pennsylvania has been called the "Paris" of Appalachia as far as diversity of society. That is why you so many Appalachian people there who may be of Eastern European, Italian or Greek ancestry along with the Scots-Irish. That is not so much true in the rest of Appalachia where the majority are the traditional Scots-Irish ancestry.
I'm from Appalachia, so thank you for not being rude towards us, everyone views us as dumb and illiterate inbreds (which there are some ofc) but in reality, Appalachia is a beautiful place and the people here and very kind. I'm from Eastern Kentucky if anyone was wondering :)
i grew up in appalachian NC, went to college there too, and know my family comes from the Cherokee tribe and european settlers. my family has been poor whites who hunted their food and got through harder times than i could ever imagine. i enjoy studying the complex history, identity, and perception of appalachains. thank you for this video 🤍
Just started learning more about the Appalachian area and the people there, and it's definitely nice to find videos that aren't just hateful or focusing on negative stereotypes. Obviously there's gonna be.... not so great people almost anywhere you go, but from literally everything factual I can gather, most all Appalachian folks are honest, hard working, kind people ☺️
I honestly don’t count or at all consider county Pike county in Pennsylvania as “Appalachia”. I still think it is more of NYC metro/Philly Metro because a lot of people from Philly, NYC, NJ go to the poconos and catskill mountains on a regular basis to go skiing and snow tubing.
One of my most favorite quotes is from JFK when he campaigned through West Virginia: “The sun doesn’t always shine in West Virginia, but the people always do.”
Wow what rich culture Appalachian people have and such a beautiful geographical landscape. If I ever visit America in the future I’d love to visit the Appalachia region. Greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪
It’s nice to see someone talking about the history of the area instead of poking fun at the backwards stereotypes that seem to dominate the nation’s view of us.
I am a proud, educated "Appalachian Hillbilly". I have lived in a 'Holler' in SE Ky my entire life. I have visited and worked in other places but my heart is here. It is beautiful and filled with caring/protective people. Thank you for shining a little light on my neck of the woods.
As a proud Appalachian at heart. There is no place like home. I find myself dreaming of the mountains from my childhood. It's only when I go back and see it's grace that I truly feel whole.
I'm from Asia and a fan of mountain horror/gore films from Hollywood. Sorry to ask, but how did those stories come to films? How do they affect your communities?
@@ProximaCentauri88 because they're not as developed as the cities, theyre usually made fun of. Hollywood takes that to the extreme, and that stereotype is very difficult to shake off.
@@ProximaCentauri88 Because in some remote areas of Appalachia, you may come across some inbred families which I suppose is more frequent than in big cities (I read North Carolina has more inbred families than any other state). I am not American but got interested in the subject after I watched this video : th-cam.com/video/nkGiFpJC9LM/w-d-xo.html Hope you're not too sensitive as that's sad, impressive and definitely upsetting.
A few years back I heard a story about a census taking place and some guys were sent into a very remote region to take details. They came across a community and struggled to understand what they were saying. To cut a long story short, the locals used a specific term for a broomstick, calling it a broomstale, and they managed to source their roots back to the Black Country in England, just from that one word. Whether it's apocryphal or not I don't know, but I can imagine it being true......especially of you've heard the Black Country dialect.
As a born an raised Appalachian man of South Central Pennsylvania, I applaud this video. I'm sitting on top of one of the many Appalachian Mountains camping for the week just to get away from society for a while. Nowhere has ever felt so much like home than the wooded mountains of my life.
Scotlands landscape used to be like that too until they cut down all the forests and called it 'land management', it was not land management, they needed lots of wood to build ships, the very ships that made Brittania rule the waves and create and rig the transatlantic trade so that Britain made all the cash (known as the 2nd British empire 'soft conquest')
@@chrispekel5709 I made this comment 9 months ago... That's laughable considering I'm now sitting in the Colorado Rockies, well the foothills currently. Regardless of what mountain range I occupy, I never completely shut my phone off. Having the understanding that things happen and that I may encounter dangerous wildlife, at no time do I want to wait for my phone to boot up if I have to make an emergency phone call. And considering the fact that now I don't only have Black Bears to deal with, but also Mt. Lions, Grizzlies, Moose, as well as Diamondback Rattlesnakes and Scorpions and Tarantulas. No, I'd rather have my phone on and ready to go in case something happens. I have a 3 year old, accident prone daughter and my accident prone wife who I also have to look after as well. Not to mention I like taking pictures to document the places I've been and some of the gorgeous views I've seen in my travels. I've driven over 3000 since July 5th of 2022, been in over a dozen different states in that time and seen many places most wouldn't even see because they don't leave the highway. And this has all been simply because we can. With having that many miles in such a short time, and many more than that over my almost 32 years, you don't ever completely shut down your phone because you never know when you'll end up in a situation and the only way to fix it is to make a phone call. Sometimes those seconds to a minute it takes for your phone to boot up, you can bleed out from an arterial laceration. If it hadn't been for having my phone on, I wouldnt have known two years ago that my house had caught fire thanks to a roommate that originally left me, and my gf at the time now ex, homeless to begin with. So no, I never shut my phone off and I always make sure I have some way to keep my phone charged at all times as well as active with service. Because of everything I've been through that I never thought I'd have to deal with, you will never catch my phone off or out of service.
I grew up in Appalachia, I thought everything you said was just how things were, once I moved to Texas I realized there was a much different cultural identity
well, not sure what you'll throw at me...but here in NW Florida it's Ap-a-lay-shAH the only thing we pronounce "apple atchya" is the city of Apalachicola...and the Bay of course. lol
@@gidget8717 I think it's the "ia" at the end that for some reason makes the A in "Lach" different. It's like we consider the CH part of the IA syllable. ALl I know it's just in my 50 years I've never heard it pronounced differently. It is strange though how regions do that.
@@gidget8717 lol..oh yeah, Micanopy is a good one, from Sopchoppy to Suwannee and Two Egg to Eucheeanna and Okahumpka to Wewahitchka we got some REAL strange town names..lol
Appalachian music forms the backbone for American music. Scots-Irish music plus African music combined in this region to make the American music we have today.
This is absolutely correct !! As a musician and music producer from LOS ANGELES I have been telling people this for a WHILE. AMERICAN FOLK MIXED WITH AMERICAN BLACK MUSIC gave birth to rock music we onow today thru the folk-blues connection. Without this.... You dont get Johnny cash, you dont get Robert Johnson, you dont Jerry Lee Lewis, dont get get Elvis, you dont get the Beatles and you dont get led zepplin.... Amd that continues for-ever
True. Country, bluegrass, jazz, R&B, rock, metal, ska, reggae, hip hop, and EDM are all products of this American synthesis between the folk music of the British Isles and the folk music of West and Central Africa which originated in Appalachia.
I appreciate the fact that you did not slander us as most do, as being dumb, ignorant, hillbillies!! I do not like the word " hillbilly" at all. The implications of that is we're poor stupid people!! Our ancestors were poor mostly but not dumb at all!! Maybe uneducated in a schooling sense but, accomplished what they needed to do!! Farming a land that was hard to do at best, to feed they're families, raised tobacco to take to market and sell. They bartered with each other and trade stores. They had very good common sense. They learned from their Indian neighbors, and each other, being that they were immigrants from different countries. I'm very proud of my Appalachian heritage!!! Irish, Cherokee,
As a modern Irish Ulster man i just want to say you've really knocked it out of the park on this one. You explore the nuance and reasons of who and why very well and you knowledge of ulster platation and irish famine leading to the mass immigration of celts to the americas is a fine bit of history i find is often completely unknown or never taught to many Americans and it should be! Most US citzen know their is a large diaspora of Irish and scottish people there today but many are unaware of the complex history between the two nations that gave rise to it!. If stars were still a thing id give this vide 5 outa 5 bud. Liked and subed.
As someone raised in a rural, unincorporated town in East Tennessee, I have to say that I loved this video. Your highlighting of the sensations of isolation and otherness in this region are all too real. When I went to college, both in Undergraduate and Graduate studies, I felt completely isolated. To this day I barely feel like an American (Not at all an unpleasant feeling given current events). As the internet continues to make the world smaller, the Appalachian identity feels as if it's shrinking and dying. Political ideology is becoming the identifying backbone of a people who, as you pointed out, have a history of either ignoring those squabbles or bucking up against them. I daily commute to an urban area for work, did the same for school, and before I was 18, 95% of my days were spent in a town with less than 2,000 people. In urban areas, the Appalachian identity seems dead (likely due to immigration from other regions). You'll find traces of that cultural lineage that defines us Appalachians, but as a cultural minority, we're shrinking and dying. I'm sure we'll stick around for many more generations, but more work needs to be done to preserve more than just our region's history. The history of our people, our culture, needs to be preserved. I think a video like this one is a contribution to that end, and for that, I thank you and say good work here.
We’re still here and more likely to stay that way than change. You have more like you than you probably know. Stay humble. They don’t know we are better than them.
@Johnny White Well make sure to have a bunch of kids and “train them up in the way they should go and, when they are older, they shall not soon depart.” That’s part Good Book and part Mountain wisdom.
My dad is from a poor county in West Virginia and lived in poor hollers. My mom is from Alabama and we live in Alabama. I love the mountains and always have. My grandmother is of Scottish Decent and my grandfather is of German decent (on dads side) Appalachia is a very beautiful and interesting place. The way they build their “towns” and hollers (a place in between two mountains where there are usually homes) Charleston, West Virginia is extremely interesting because it is surrounded by mountains. When my dad was a kid his family had a very very small landscaping business and they helped this rich lady in Charleston who had property on a little hill right above Charleston and from her back porch you could see the gold dome on the capital building. Sorry for the rant but Appalachia is very interesting place and if you get the chance West Virginia is a really cool place in Appalachia.
I'm scottish and very interested in the appalachians, if I ever get to America I would love to visit the mountains of appalachia for a hiking trip! For me, the accent is just beautiful, very warm and welcoming
I live in East TN. I can vouch for the clickish behavior. The compassion and affection for one another is sometimes excessive and there is a certain subdued hostility toward new faces. It’s just a way of protecting ourselves from hostile parties that have pillaged the region for so many years. By this point it’s built into the culture. But once you smile and show yourself to not be a threat and your intentions to be good you’ll receive hospitality like you’ve never experienced.
I drove a navy buddy home to the "panhandle" of maryland back in 1977 and still remember the steep hills and small mountains of the north eastern west virginia area. Gorgeous land !!
My granny grew up in a 1 room shack with 11 siblings and my papaw the same with 7 siblings. My cousin and I are the first 2 to graduate high school and get a college degree. Proud of our Appalachian and Native roots here in western NC. Thank you for taking your time to make this informative video
Im from the border of Appalachia in Virginia and have grown up traveling deeper into it on the weekends with my dad and I am fortunate enough to have seen the world but whenever im in Appalachia the accent and the people bring me back to good memories and the love of the mountains
My family has been in the appalachian region since the 1780s and come from a mixture of Scotch Irish and German. I'm proud of my heritage from these tough survivors. The history of these industrious and God fearing people in east Tennessee where I live is amazing. Don't be fooled by the stereotypes, every farmer I've ever known is a self taught engineer/ and master mechanic. They can do anything with virtually nothing. When the grid crashes and commerce ceases, they'll survive.
I've been trying to trace my family tree the past couple of years, and I found out my grandpa on my mom's side came to White, Tennessee in the early 1800s from England. I haven't been able to go back past 1650 England for that side of the family. My dad's side of the family, I've been able to trace back to 1294 England. A couple of noted ancestors of mine was Richard Lovelace the poet who wrote "To Althea, from Prison." _"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage."_ His brother Francis Lovelace, second governor of New York and purchaser of Staten Island, was my direct ancestor. He also owned the Lovelace Tavern and was shipped back to England and blamed for the Dutch retaking control of Manhattan. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London until he died in 1675. My step-dad's family, however, I've been able to trace back to 975 AD Scotland to Strut Harald and his son Thorkell "Longus" "The Tall". I really wish I could go back further, but ancestry sites only give so much free service. Interestingly enough, all my family seems to have originated from England-Scotland-Sweden-Germany (I suppose they all came from Germania anyway), and all ended up in the Appalachian Mountains around the same time between the 1600s and 1800s. I've lived in Western North Carolina in Franklin since I was 4 years old, almost 40 years now.
There's truly nothing like them mountains. I've lived in Appalachia my whole life minus the last 2 years, and nothing compares to home. My family tree is speckled with Scottish, German and Shawnee and it felt like a warm hug hearing them discussed in this. We also had a population of Italian immigrants in SWVA, which gave us the state's official food: Pepperoni Rolls. I'd love to see a part 2 to this discussing the interesting mix of cultures at length.
Good overview! One small correction: Ireland's great Famine (c. 1845-55) had almost nothing to do with the settling of Appalachia. The latter occurred overwhelmingly in the 1700s, and overwhelmingly by Ulster Presbyterians, who at the time neither suffered the near-slavery of Penal Laws nor enjoyed the privilege of Anglican Establishment/Ascendancy. Most were yeoman farmers and tradesmen, but that was poor enough to feel the pinch of London's mercantilist policies that treated Ireland (as they did the colonies which became the USA) like a foreign country. This pattern changed in the early 19th Century, as the Act of Union (of Great Britain and Ireland) ended mercantilist pressures, Ascendancy privileges were extended to all Protestants, and the Gaelic/Catholic Irish picked up on the strategy of seeking a better life in (by then independent and non-sectarian) America. By the eve of the Famine, Irish emigration had become a largely Catholic affair, and largely to the cities of the North - where industrialization and lack of slave competition meant high demand for unskilled free labor.
I tested my DNA through ancestry. I am 51 percent Scotch Irish. I have ethnicity throughout this region that has skipped at least two generations. I have a great deal of pride that connects with this beautiful area where mountains, hollers, family, and simplicity are first and foremost. These people were not poor in spirit, therefore they had more of what really matters.
As someone born and raised in the southern Appalachian area I had to watch this. We actually pronouce it diffrent than the way you are saying it. It is not a Sha sound it is a tcha sound at the end at least in most of the southern half. Also the people of the Apalachian mountians have survived some of the worst educational societal and economic hardships of the entire country and managed to survive them while living in some cases in isolation from the rest of the US. We dont always get credit for that. Most movies dont do the southern part of Appalachia right. It has a rich culture of hardship community and triumph. Our ancestors intermarried with many cultures and races and it gave us in many cases a very interesting history. If you are not at least 3rd generation apalachian you can never truly understand what it is to be. You can't just move to the mountians and say oh I get it becuase you won't.
I find it fascinating that people think of Appalachian as being inbred when in fact the mixtures of Scots Irish, English, German, African, and no small amount of American Indian as well as smaller mixtures of Irish, Poles, Jews, French, and Welsh actually make them one of the most genetically diverse populations in the country.
Well my family intermarried with other cultures and other races but I met plenty of people while living in West Virginia (and I'm 4th generation not 3rd thanks) that clearly did not. You can tell. You can tell from their features and their lifestyle something just isn't right. There were still dirty kids in my elementary school in the 1980s. Not the 60s. I wasn't alive for all that. But the 80s. THE 80s!!! It's not just back then it's within the last 20 years there are still "those people" and they aren't even trying to triumph by developing DIY farming skills. Some are. There are definitely artisans and farmers and crafts-people. But that's not the whole story. Don't deny it.
@@jabujolly9020 well there is a lot of inbreeding in the Appalachians due to mountainous isolation. Then there is the problem of it becoming normalized even after the world "opened up" through the highway system in the 1950s and 60s. You can research it, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina are within the most inbred states. They just are. I have no shame in admitting this fact because I know my parents weren't related to each other, nor were my grandparents. I remember growing up there were entire families that gave me the creeps.
The origin of the name "is" pronounced Apple-atcha. My family started in Jamestown & grew w/the country across the south east to west into Kentucky. Amazing that I have direct ancestors that literally built this country in the history books like Nicolas Matiau who started Yorktown Equally amazing are my ancestors that also built this country with their hands, on farms, in the coal mines, on the oil fields, in the wars, heads of ministries etc. Proud of each direct & indirect ancestor like Armigal Wade & Alexander Mills... We are ALL AMERICANS & are woven into the fabric of America.
'Hill Billies' refers to the prevalence of the name 'William', aka/shortened to 'Billy'. this name is popular amongst protestants from Northern Ireland and Scotland post-1690, after the Protestant Prince (then to become King) William of Orange conquered the Catholic forces of King James, at the Battle of the Boyne, for info.
...and I, a proud Scot, love to watch the Orange Walk in July as we celebrate the victory over the Catholics that allowed the Bible to be unchained from the RC pulpits and translated into the words of the people. The Dark Ages were all about burning catholic priests at the stake for committing this crime of teaching the Bible to their congregants in their own language. If you can read the Bible you know that salvation is a "free gift" and that "the only intermediary between God and man is Jesus Christ.". This renders priests impotent to forgive sins (as if a man can forgive you your sins!) and blows the whole "catholic church is the only church in Christendom" myth apart. Frankenpope is the perfect illustration of the "infallibility" of the Pope! To be clear, I am talking about the catholic church and NOT catholic people. I have known many wonderful Christians who attend the catholic church. It is their doctrine and dogma and lack of Biblical authority that hurts the catholics, not those who truly seek God, as He promised that He would reveal Himself to anyone who looked honestly for Him.
@@kirstyi7860 there is no intermediary, agree but some people need a helping hand with interpretation. Agree no intermediary can forgive sins on behalf of God. That's a one-one matter.
@@kirstyi7860 This really isn't the place for it, but you do know that there were vernacular bibles in Catholicism, right? And nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Bible is the only authority. Check 2 Thess 2:15. I am the first Catholic first son of a first son in my line for 500 years, and I've had to have deliverance from Freemasonry in my bloodline. That's where Protestant pride got me!
I grew up in the western part of Tennessee, but I went to graduate school in the Appalachian region of Tennessee. I didn't realize how different the two sides of the state were - from geography to dialect. You did a great job and it is quite an interesting video!
I am from Maine and when you talked about Native Americans and the map you put up is just says other tribes. A few off the top of my head are Passamaquoddy, Micmac, Penobscot and Maliseet. There are a few more but these are the ones I know for sure. Thank you for your video. It’s always fun to learn how other people live in different areas of the world.
Masaman, That was well done !! I as a descendant of Appalachia thank you for this video. My great grandfather was from the region of the 'Ol Virginias and i myself have a lot of the mixes that you've mentioned ! You even nailed it pretty much on all the historical areas. Thank you.
It's because most people didn't pay attention in social studies or history in school. It was my favorite subject I hated the other students not taking it seriously.
I found this documentary so fascinating and very informative. It basically confirms what I already know and have learned from my family history and from my DNA test. I am of Scot-Irish, German & English decent. A smidgen of Scandinavian is in me too. I am 4th generation in this country. My family on both sides planted themselves in Sevierville Tennessee. I have many relatives that still live there. The Conatser's, which are German (Grandma side). Then she married a Scot/Irish, McCullough's (Grandpa). This video was very educational & makes perfect sense to me. Ty!
The Irish parts gets exaggerated quite a lot. They were Protestants ( mostly Presbyterians) from southern Scotland and northern England, who were essentially part of a land grab in Ulster - spending many years massacring, and getting massacred by, the actual catholic Irish. Many were emigrating across the Atlantic quickly - within a generation of two. The degree to which they were “Irish”, or "Celtic" (whatever that means) for that matter, was minuscule. In fact, most Irish would have been, and probably still are, massively insulted by the use of the word “Irish”, in Scots-Irish.
Also, while Appalachians share some similarities to the type of cultural collectives like Latino or Asian Americans, I think Appalachian identity is more akin to Italian-American during the end of the 19th century. That is to say that Latinos are a political identity somewhat imposed internally, while Appalachian identity was imposed externally. Appalachian’s were “othered” to a large degree by popular culture and media of the 19th century including books, plays, magazine articles, vaudeville, and early movies. Many people we call Appalachian historically referred to themselves as Virginian or Kentuckians before anything else. And this was true up to the mid 20th century.
@@Freydis-flowers Henry Shapiro’s Appalachia on Our Mind is a seminal text. I’m partial to Anthony Harkins’ Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon. That mostly examines “hillbillies” as a product of popular culture. “Hillbilly” and Appalachian are not mutually exclusive nor interchangeable. But that book goes to lengths to detail how mass culture influenced our ideas of Appalachianess
@@nlsantiesteban Big gov. does that intentionally. They don't want people having the idea that they can ditch the system and live independently. George Washington was given his victory by my/your/our ancestors of Appalachia. He thanked them by having them slaughtered when they refused to pay taxes.
I’m a proud Appalachian-American New Yorker! Yes, Appalachia includes parts of NY. I’m a first generation college graduate, who went to a public high school with 49 students in my class, and I’m an American of English, Dutch, German & Celtic descent.
I’m in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina currently, my moms entire family is from Appalachia, mostly East Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. I have too many stories about my family to include in this comment but I sincerely enjoyed this video!
You have presented the most respectful documentary on my people thT I have seen in 70 years. My home is West Virginia and everytime I watch videos about its history I either cry from a deep pride or because of the disrespectful portrayal of us. I have come to realize that the economic source most prevalent in this diverse region brought about the "cultural traditions " and life ways. My family was coal miners and a coal mining community developed quite differently than say farmers, agriculture -related work. I searched back 5 generations and the fartherest away I could find that from which my ancestors migrated was Virginia. 😊😊 The mines employed many people from far away and so allowed for the diffusion of many ways. I have also found that , when a person speaks, if the "ow" ending of a word becomes "er" or if it becomes an "a" this linguistic difference indicates the regional origin of ancestors. The nasty and ignorant stereotypical image of my people produced YET TO THIS VERY DAY MAKES ME SO ANGRY AND DISGUSTED but it has certainly helped me to have an open mind and heart to "others." Thank you many times over. And, no, we did not marry our family members.
@@tektako Stereotypes ARE meant to influence the perception of a group as successfully as possible by those who created them and caused them to continue to be a part of our culture for as long as we have been a culture. Stereotyping was developed to create division, fear, and separation among us for many many reasons...of course if you meet and become friends with a group member of a stereotyped community and they do not fulfill those characteristics one is supposed to realize that door to truth has been opened. But that is NOT what happens. That one experience leads to " an exception to the rule" application. Look at the shit still being presented as a normal Appalachian family just to continue this element of stupidity and receive audience activity on social media channels - for a few dollars a month. Stereotyping and profiling are methods of distraction from true realities.
@@LINDA-oi4mt Well said! I've travelled around quite a few u.s states from london England and I loved the south and its people I experienced friendly welcoming people with great wit and humour ❤🇬🇧
Scotch is now used to refer to the drink; but it was not always so. The people referred to here were there at a time when it was in common usage and not regarded as a slur *. I heard it used but once in this presentation and outside of historical writings; I never hear it used. * Both Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott used it as an adjective.
"Scotch-Irish" is an American colloquialism for Scots-Irish. Sure, it's not "proper" English, but since when does language evolve "properly"? For that matter, why would a Scot care about proper English pronunciation? A true scotsman 😉 would be speaking Albannach anyway, innit?
Kirsty I, my grandmother, who was from Inverness, caught me saying “Scottish” once. Only once. She told me it was scot or scotch, the ish was for the English or the Irish. You never argued with her.
I wouldn't claim to be an Appalachian myself, I was brought up in the midwest in a middle income household, but I'm well aware my great grandma was, she is no longer with us, but she was one of the most loving women I've ever known, I've never seen her mad, ever in my whole life. She always told me that I was part Hillbilly/Hillfolk and no matter what everyone said, I should be proud of that heritage, and for her, I always will be. Thanks for giving her people and homelands the respect they deserve !
Born and raised in the foothills of the Southern Appalachian chain. I appreciate so much about this video, but I especially appreciate the commentary on my ancestors views of slavery. Southern people in the US get painted as being extremely racist, but that's just never been my experience. You find the odd racist sometimes, but those people generally speak their racism in whispers cause they know the majority of us aren't about that bs. Thank you for showing us in an honest light. It's refreshing. This video needs so many more views.
Peter Ordinary I know you tried to get me there but yes, I actually have some pretty notorious people in my family, from the Bushwhacker brothers and the rogue general who didn’t wish to fight for the confederates anymore and had to kill 10 men to stay hidden, it does seem to be like that. Not worse than many back in those times, though.
@Peter Ordinary Also, the Native North Americans were murderers, too. The mound builders lived there first but they fought and the mound builders were driven South to the Andes Mountains and Mexico. They became the Aztecs and Incas.
I currently live in rural PA, and we all have weird ethnicity mixes. I'm a mix of German, Welsh, and Cherokee. But seeing an explanation of the areas that I call home is immensely appreciated. (Btw, northen Appalachians say Appa-lay-shu, and southerners say Appa-latch-uh)
Good overview! One small correction: Ireland's great Famine (c. 1845-55) had almost nothing to do with the settling of Appalachia. The latter occurred overwhelmingly in the 1700s, and overwhelmingly by Ulster Presbyterians, who at the time neither suffered the near-slavery of Penal Laws nor enjoyed the privilege of Anglican Establishment/Ascendancy. Most were yeoman farmers and tradesmen, but that was poor enough to feel the pinch of London's mercantilist policies that treated Ireland (as they did the colonies which became the USA) like a foreign country. This pattern changed in the early 19th Century, as the Act of Union (of Great Britain and Ireland) ended mercantilist pressures, Ascendancy privileges were extended to all Protestants, and the Gaelic/Catholic Irish picked up on the strategy of seeking a better life in (by then independent and non-sectarian) America. By the eve of the Famine, Irish emigration had become a largely Catholic affair, and largely to the cities of the North - where industrialization and lack of slave competition meant high demand for unskilled free labor.
Some of the friendliest people when traveling Iv'e meet are from Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri. From a Hispanic mid age male[ if that means anything, it doesn't to me]. Beautiful country too!
Most people outside of the USA only care about NY or LA, but imo the Midwest and the South are so much more fascinating. Rural America is ethereal. Thanks for the video, cheers from France.
I live in the north of Ireland I have done a DNA test. I keep getting people America who genetically linked to, people 3rd to 5th cousins. So if any of my cousins see this hello from Ireland 🇮🇪 🤚🇺🇸
Little fun fact: I live in WV and there’s a ton of Italian-Americans where I live. He talked a lot about Irish, Scot, and English settlers, but not them for the most part. There’s an Italian Heritage Festival pretty close to where I live every year. I know lots of Italians so I just thought it was kinda cool idk. Also, if you ever come to WV eat some pepperoni rolls, they’re the best.
WV is a "suburb" of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh is by far the most ethnically diverse area of Appalachia, so yes you will find many ethnic groups in WV, especially as you get closer to Pittsburgh. The best was going to Italian-American weddings in the mining villages there. Talk about a big party!
My dad's side of the family is very Appalachian. People I knew growing up (Midwest) never understood why I identified my ethnicity as American. I didn't even know it was an Appalachian thing, but it makes a lot of sense.
Thanks for this video!! Both of my parents are Appalachian and I grew up in the region. My familial ties to the region run super deep but the history isn’t often spoke about. I’m also Scot-Irish with some other DNA mixed in there 😂
I live in Franklin County, Virginia! I love it here, despite grandad coming from upstate South Carolina, Spartanburg area, my family is not from the area at all! I'm an immigrant from NYC suburbs...the people here are kind, beautiful, and brilliant. Not to mention, very religious, which makes the crime, negativity, and nastiness I found in NY, almost nonexistent, here. There's a higher standard for kindness, here. Good, decent human beings! And way more kindly racial relations, down here, despite what some outsiders think. All colors of farmer, sit together for breakfast, at 6am, at the local general store...and they're all, like, over the age of 55! It's honestly a beautiful thing! What decent place, filled with decent people! I will tell you 1 thing: few Italians, few Jews! Also, very, VERY few East Asians. So our restaurant bought food is quite limited! No bagel stores, few pizza places(they're awful), no Thai, and very few Chinese, take out, here in Frankin County...so weird! Lots of country, tasty, buffet food, if you want to drive a half hour, and I live on a lake, so some high end restaurants on the water, but not many. I like it quiet, but I do enjoy people watching, at times, so if this happens, I go to Roanoke, or Charlottesville! Both beautiful, "cities".
I'm from northern Alabama. My family sir name has an O' in front of it. The area I grew up in didn't have a name. It was just called,THE MOUNTAIN. I found this fascinating. We are looked down upon because of where we live & it can be a hard life,especially for a girl/ woman but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I've come to understand that you shouldn't measure someone's inteligance or wisdom based on their level of education. My grannie helped teach me that. After doing a little travelling I've also come to realize we may be a little tougher & meaner than most folks. Like I said,its a hard life.
I agree there's many measures of intelligence. My father for example can build and fix almost anything and he's made himself a lot of money off real-estate. He didnt go to college. I see people with masters degrees today saying men can get pregnant and they cant fix anything and they live in poverty with a masters degree. So whos more intelligent? The one who has real life skills or the one who can win a spelling B?
This is so interesting and I like that you acknowledge the mixed ancestry of this region. I have a small amount of the European heritage that you mentioned and a mixed race great grandfather that came from the south and had family that migrated to Pennsylvania and New York in particular and it makes me wonder if an ancestor came from the Appalachians.
Born and raised in those mountains there a reservation in North Carolina where I was raised I sure do miss the sheer beauty of that place proud to be Native American
Fascinating stuff! It's especially fascinating to watch when you are literally sitting in one of the areas mentioned in this video. Anyway, here are a few ideas. I also want to mention the topics I have reiterated in several other comment posts on video (don't feel it's necessary them again). 1. Are Italians the modern day descendants of the Romans? 2. Population of The Vatican 3. The four Sanskrit villages of India (where Sanskrit is still spoken as an everyday language) 4. The specifically Yiddish aspects of Birobidzhan 5. Why does Bjork (pure Icelander) look somewhat Asian? Genetics of Iceland examined more in depth. 6. Sea Peoples and the modern day descendents 7. Most surprising genetic traits that are unique from everywhere else in isolated populations 8. What if the French had successfully colonized Kerguelen? 9. Christmas Island, Cocos and Keeling Islands, Torres Strait Islands, populations of Australian, New Zealand, and Papuan Territories 10. Pre-Islamic Africa analyzed more in depth, specifically Sub-Saharan Africa.
I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and this video speaks very much to my experience as a child and teenager. Thank you for making videos that--whatever the ethnicity or origin of the group--treats them with dignity and respect.
@@dehliafredericks3573 I wanted to do justice to your comment so I rewatched the video. I feel like it doesn't whitewash the Appalacians and gives ample credit to the different peoples of color who contribute to the region's population. I am a mixture of African, Native American, and white genetics which is typical of the region, so I have to respectfully disagree that (1) "they have a white skin colour" and (2) that they are treated with dignity for this reason.
@@dehliafredericks3573 your not real, no matter what color your skin is, ppl from Appalachia are the butt of so many jokes it hurts. Stop baiting people
Appalachians are American ethnically as far as I'm concerned. We've been here way longer than the country and my family signed the declaration of independence. I think we deserve that title.
While I'm not an Appalachian (Brazilian), I grew up in Hagerstown, MD, which was my first home in the US. It was where I learned English and would sleep with the Mountains on the horizon. So, I would spend a lot of time either at the foot or in those woods skiing, camping, getting maple syrup or ice cream, visiting the St Mary grotto close by, or just enjoying the view. Boy Scouting also exposed me to a lot of it (C&O Canal and Paw-Paw Tunnel ring a bell) (Many trips to WV helped too). Even my school's Outdoor School program was held in the middle of the Appalachians. All of these experiences will always give me a special connection to the Greater Appalachians that I still carry to this day. The connection even followed me to North Carolina in the Triad region (middle of the state). Most of the Boy Scout trips were involved with the Blue Ridge (a sub-section of the Appalachians): from backpacking across Grayson Highlands to summiting Mt. Mitchell to eating BBQ after climbing Roan Mountain to confronting the New River. Thanks to Scouting (and my family visiting the woods frequently), my awe and love for the mountains never wavered and probably never will as long as I am alive. Thank you for making this video and teaching me more about the area where I grew up in.
There are a lot of good people that live there. Their culture is rich and interesting. The Appalachian people have a lot of talent and are passionate about the history and skill sets that have stood the test of time.
As a proud Appalachian from the great smoky mountains of east TN. My ancestors were among the first too volunteer to fight for the independence of this country we gained in 1776. I thank you for cutting through the stereotypes and representing us well. Our heritage is rich, and we are proud of it! Thank you much sir 🙏
You must be from "the Paris of Appalachia," otherwise known as Pittsburgh. I've lived in northern Appalachia almost all of my life. I was born and raised in the Appalachian part of New York (yes, part of New York is located in Appalachia) and I've lived in The Burgh for the last 30 years.
sarco64 there’s a French part??!?! I’m from southern Appalachia so I thought the only European influences were German, Scots-Irish, Scottish, Irish, and some English
I'm from North Carolina and am primarily descended from Scotch-Irish and Palatine Germans who settled in the Blue Ridge Mountains around the same time. My family had mostly forgotten their roots but one cultural artifact that survived is my family's heirloom quilts that are commonly associated with Scotch-Irish settlers.
Drakilicious Wtf is your problem!? You clearly have a very personal issue that you like to take out on an entire population of strangers lmao Your comments make absolutely no sense... funny you should be calling someone else dumb but you had a “real Irishman” tell you a bunch of non-coherent bullshit (Don’t believe you) and that’s supposed to make the rest of us look like fools? Hahaha gtfo and btw the word hick is not offensive
The 1790-1810 census of the Appalachians shows the majority of settlers were English, followed by Scottish, some households stating English and Scottish, 10 Welsh households, some stating English and Welsh 8 German households, 1 French, No Irish.
I guess the people who look down upon the people in the Appalachian region must be other Americans, because as a foreigner I’ve always wanted to meet the Appalachia, specially West Virginia
A big part of the culture was The Chestnut Trees. They didn't need to farm. They didn't to trade for supplies. The nuts fed hogs and turkeys meanwhile the wood was durable, water-mold resistant, and many chestnut wood structures are all over the place and look nearly new. A lot of old fences, barns, and "mysterious stairs" in woods in the era are made from chestnut wood and well over 100 years old. Around the 1900s a blight came and it forced urbanization and people moving out of the area because you could no longer homestead efficiently. I met hardened elderly "hillbilly" men that have cried telling me about childhood memories of chestnut trees and all the money/food/joy/celebration it brought them. I only met two people like that who first-hand saw the trees. There's a lot of people who said their grandparents would get the same sort of grief talking about it.
I'm a proud Appalachian from Pa. Proud of my heritage and the beautiful town I live in. Beautiful country. Wouldn't live any where else. Born and raised. Served seven years in the us army. Was in Alabama, Grafenwohr, Germany, Bayreuth, Germany. Both in Bavaria. Beautiful country, but I came home and stayed in my hometown. Who reading these still use words like pecker wood, paper poke, tote, jeet ( did you eat ) , down yonder, holler ( hollow) my mom always told me and my brother to go to the store and you best not be squirreling around. And to many more to list. Thank you for the great video and not making us look like backwards inbreds.
For a fascinating read about Appalachia when it was still very isolated culturally and little-known by the outside world, try Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders from 1913.
a lot of folks don,t know but highlanders were fightin the spanish for the british before the usa was born. they were given land in return. many married native americans. chief mcintosh is the descendent of one of them. as was chief ross.
i have lived in the foothills of appalchia my entire life and boyyyyyy just let me say thank you for this comprehensive look. we don't let a lot of information out thats for sure, so having a voice in this video is huge.
I'm Scottish born and raised, but my father is Irish and find all the ulster American history so interesting, a huge percentage of entire generations left Ireland and Scotland to chase a new lift in America
My ancestors were Scottish and Irish are well represented in the Carolina's, Virginia and West Virginia. Starting with the fourth generation back there are four generation's of Chickasaw with one Cherokee woman and a Sioux woman marrying in these generations. This is on the maternal side. Interestingly, we have family members with olive skin the reason why we didn't know until I worked on our genealogy recently. Love your work Mason. Thanks.
As a proud Appalachian, it makes me really happy to see someone being real about this place and not being derogatory. Thank you 🎉
1234lavaking but he doesn’t know how to say it
There are so many special things about this region such as the folk art that are being lost to the modern world. I give Dolly Parton a whole lot of credit for helping preserve the mountain culture by bringing a revenue stream to Pigeon Forge. I remember when I was little this was barely a stop on the road to Gatlinburg. Now its a tourist attraction in and of itself bringing income to many of the poorer families around those parts.
@Robert Gardea My dad does. It is used for parties(pig roasts actually). Too many people flushing the toilet backs up the septic tank.
Here here
I am ulster Scots and I would have moved there to retire but that's not to be. I love the people the music
I have a bit of history with the scots irish my Wife's great great great ect Grandad was Andrew Jacksons snr
next door neighbours, her family's house is the Jackson centre in Carrickfergus .Co.Antrim UK.
My mom grew up eating possum and squirrel in a poor holler in East Tennessee. My grandmother lived in a shack in the mountains of Kentucky with 12 other siblings and a single mother. My grandfather as a 12 year old ran moonshine with his father. I don’t know how much more hillbilly you can get. I’m delighted by this video and your exploration of our history!
Me I'm way more hillbilly.
I consider this a challenge before all human race and I'm gonna win!
My great grandmother made me trap and kill those things. I hated it, but if the apocalypse comes, I'm gonna be ok. Lol
@The Duke they are white it’s part of being stupid racist and Un cultured. In like pics they chose to be poor cause whites oppress everyone
Reminds me of my family from Mexico.
I’m from West Virginia and used to live pretty far out where Appalachian culture thrived. This is pretty cool to see my family and friends and me in some ways represented away from stereotypes. Thank you for this video.
Ever run across a Keesee?
We aren't always considered as southerners
I am also from West Virginia
It gets old having people give you hell for being from West Virginia so this is nice to see.
@@howtogetdisowned7478 I always love explaining to people that I’m southern even though WV is always seen as northern. Blows their mind
I’m Cherokee through both my mother and father, and I am an enrolled tribal member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. My matrilineal Cherokee ancestors came to Oklahoma from North Georgia willingly as part of the western early settlers, and my paternal Cherokee ancestors were from Tennessee before the Trail of Tears. Many Cherokees here in Oklahoma return back to Appalachia and have this unexplainable feeling. It’s been hundreds of years since our ancestors left their homelands, but there’s still this amazing feeling of connection to the land, like your soul never left. It’s a spiritual place. I’m proud to come from the original Appalachians.
@hitman.radio30 yeah it’s almost as if DNA testing databases rely on population samples. Most Natives have not submitted their DNA to genetic databases. And being Native American is not exclusively about appearance, it’s also about the continuation of our cultures and languages. I practice my Cherokee culture and language every day.
Imagine trying to be a race scientist to invalidate modern Native people lmao. Sorry colonization failed to assimilate us and that we’ve held onto our identities despite everything (I’m not sorry, get fucked).
@hitman.radio30 your comment is suggesting that DNA percentages are meaningful. Also suggesting that a persons ethnic appearance has anything to do with ancestral connection and pride. We live on stolen land. Our european ancestors might have settled in Appalachia but our concepts of who is Appalachian is erasure of Native culture.
@hitman.radio30 also the reason cherokee would have such a high percentage is directly related to colonization and culture erasure.
@@hitman.radio3054 DNA tests are fake.
I'm glad you found that connection! Did you ever move back by any chance?
It's been said that in the early days of Appalachia, the English would first build a church, the Germans would build a barn, and the Scots-Irish would build a still.
I believe it!🤣
Those 3 things are all a person needs
I’m An African American from Tennessee. Nashville to be exact. But I have family in East Tenn. Around I say Knoxville and the Tri City’s. And I’ll tell you it’s quite a few black family’s that’s been running some stills for multiple generations and make a damn good shine too. I know a couple personally. I just did my AncestryDNA a few months ago and I came back 79% percent Sub Saharan and 21% European. And the biggest percentage of my euro was 9% Scottish. I’m only 4% Irish. The rest was English Wales and Sweden Norway and Germanic people. I have no clue how the later came in my dna. But what I can say is it was some mixing going on in Appalachia. Not only making shine but dna 🧬 wise too. 😆. But I enjoy the yearly trips East we always have a great time and drink homemade brew. And the food is ridiculous. Appalachia had some of the best cooking in the country. Don’t let them stereotypes fool ya.
@@mordekaishekelbergiv.4211 Yes I’ve been reading about that. And I’ve come to realize Anglo Saxons Swedish and Norwegian people are all Germanic people. At one point the Anglo saxons invaded the British isle a few hundred years before the Vikings did. The Anglo saxons left a way bigger mark than the Vikings dna wise on the isles . But the Vikings still had a major impact on culture. Same as they did with the Beginnings of Russia Normandy and quite a few other places. And I don’t think I was created out just slavery. I know slavery was more than likely a part of my Lineage. But I also know of couple scots Irish and black families that lived amongst each other in the mountains up in East Tennessee. Some of them intermingled and created what would become part of my lineage. I believe these scots Irish descendants of mines carried Germanic/Viking dna to America and mixed with my black American ancestors. Some of the mixed ones moved to the Nashville area around a 100 or so years ago and settled in old hickory/hermitage and Franklin/Thompson station Tennessee. And here I am now born in Nashville Tn.My grandma has a pic of my great great uncle who looked like a white man around the late 18 early 19 hundreds. But he was mixed. I know all this may seem complicated but I’ve been researching and things have become very interesting. My mom my sister one of my uncles and a first and second cousin of mines have red hair and green eyes. Every other child comes out with this trait. My highest percentage is Nigerian at 36% which I love. Makes me feel connected with that country especially. My second highest is Cameroon Congo western Bantu peoples. Overall I’m a mut but I love everything about me and would like to visit all the countries my ancestors come from. From Lagos to London ghana Scotland. Everyone on this earth is mixed with something. No one is a 100% this or that. I have love for all people. But at the end of the day ima proud black American
@@bigsouth010 ,WOW!!! I love that you know so much about your ancestry! And not just the Caucasian aspect. It's so hard for us African Americans to really learn about our African ancestry and Heritage because of slavery and the lack of Records. Of course DNA testing has made Leaps and Bounds with helping us to learn more. But not enough for us to pinpoint exact ancestors unfortunately unless people from those regions have also taken DNA tests and can be traced back to us. I am African-American, French Canadian (AKA, Cajun/Creole) and Irish. Recently I found out that I also have quite a bit of Native American ancestry as well. I found out that my father's great-grandmother was Mississippi Choctaw on his mother's side, and his great-grandmother on his father's side was Cherokee and Blackfoot. And I have absolutely no idea whereabouts from Africa my ancestors hailed. I haven't been able to do any research in terms of either of my non-caucasian ancestries yet, but I have learned a lot about my Caucasian ancestry. In fact my grandmother on my mother's side still went to visit family in Ireland up until she passed away about 10 years ago. Anyway, I'd love to hear more about what you know about your lineage and the steps you took to learn about it!
Appalachia also has a history of having its resources extracted with very little of the profits going back into the communities. People love to look down their nose at it for perceived poverty and ignorance but they dont know how much that whole region has been exploited and stereotyped for decades.
To be fair most coal miners get paid pretty well. One thing that I do find curious is that despite a lot of natural gas coming from Eastern Kentucky (where I live) most residential properties in our area don’t even have access to it. Most of it used commercially around here and I guess some of it is sent up north where they need it worse than we do.
I think its time for a revolution...
I know the people struggle because they give too much from themselves to the community and as a result, they don't have enough to do more for themselves.
I appreciate this because I also live this. It is probably because I am one of you. I lived the life too.
What I do know that makes our struggle proper is, we choose to help each other and we do not sanction the gov't to force it.
The gov't has a spelled out purpose in the constitution.
We as people have our own spelled out constitutions that never was written down because it is doesn't need to be written.
It is in our spirits and in our souls.
We don't need the gov't to help us
we need the gov't to stop spending time mopping up our tears and to start actually having value.
the gov't should not be a burden on the people.
the people should be allowed to expect the gov't to serve the people.
ALL and not some of the citizens.
Haha interesting, reminds me of an entire continent.
@@Cocochantelle right like uhmmmm sounds familiar....
This was really interesting! I’m from the Appalachian region and just learned about how a woman of the scots-Irish migration married a native of the region. I used to be embarrassed of the accent and culture as a highschooler and only recently have began to appreciate and embrace it more.
I want to say that as an Englishman, I love the hillbilly accent. I see the word as a term of endearment.
Yes, please don't fall for the portrayal that big gov. wants everyone to think of when they think of having the option to live independently of the system. It's a psyop. Big gov. wants everyone in cities so they can have full control.
It is a beautiful language but people have a hard time understanding the actual accent. It was hard for me growing up just outside the area but my family being from deep in the mountains so I had it but nobody I went to school with did so I actually had to teach myself a more proper southern. Its just so hard to drop a phrase without the accent without thinking about it though.
As a lifelong West Virginia resident the trait that stands out most to me about my heritage is the fierce independence of my grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression and how it influenced their lives . Not much was wasted on their farm and those lessons still influence me today.
West Virginia
The only state to be entirely in the Appalachian Mountains.
Where my family is from! Love it there! Parkersburg is where my grandmother and grandfather and their families grew up ever since coming to the US. We are Irish, Russian, English, and a very little bit African too. The funny part is my grandfather was a coal miner after his service with the navy and then he came up here to Alaska to do the same thing! 😂
People who make fun of Alabama for being inbred have never been to West Virginia
Javier Peralta
Everyone gets that wrong. You’re thinking of Kentucky. First cousins is not legal in WV.
What kind of person are you to come in and turn a conversation negative?
Matthew naw actually he’s rite , its some weird mufckas in West Virginia
@@rayman1269 There's weird people everywhere
I was born in Appalachian Virginia as the 5th of ten children. My mother turned 21 - 3 1/2 months after my birth. Before I started school, my mother instigated our moving in with relatives in Roanoke Virginia. Before my 2nd year of school my mother instigated another move further north to the Shenandoah valley.
Eventually there were ten of us brothers and sisters. The ending of my story could not be better. Because my mother was so strong willed, every one of her ten children graduated from college.
That is so so good, and how it should be! 💯👌👌
She sounds like an instigator. 🤔
God Bless her heart ❤ It takes a lot to raise 1 successful child, imagine 10!
@@LadyAlchemyynot in this economy
I just moved from NYC area, to Roanoke area! Franklin County. It's an amazing place, with some of the kindest, most caring folk that I have ever met. I have begun to become a kinder person, after the move, to be honest. I do think that the quality of human being, here, has to do with the attendance at church, something the north is generally lacking. I don't say this because it has to be anything Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or any relegion, to have a positive effect on the soul, and personality, but simply answering to a higher authority, it honestly helps an area to be more of a positive, kindly, place to be. I like it much better here, because I try to live positively, not because I'm religious...
To give an idea of Appalachian culture... my friend's father grew up in Western Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 60s. They burned coal for heat and had an outhouse. In the winter if no one in the family successfully killed a deer then there was no meat for dinner. He went onto college and became the principal at a prestigious private high school. He also taught us endless lessons about the outdoors, hunting and foraging.
My husband grew up in Arkansas eating game. It was a way to survive because of the lack of jobs. Appalachia had the natural resources. It's sad that they didn't reap the large monetary benefits of the coal industry.
Это круто!!! 👍 Привет из Сибири
@@sunflowerroark5170more like eating people
My grandfather was a Ukrainian coal miner in Western Pennsylvania. There were lots of Ukrainians coal mining in Western Pennsylvania. You haven't mentioned any.
@@jackiemack8653 Southwestern Pennsylvania has been called the "Paris" of Appalachia as far as diversity of society. That is why you so many Appalachian people there who may be of Eastern European, Italian or Greek ancestry along with the Scots-Irish. That is not so much true in the rest of Appalachia where the majority are the traditional Scots-Irish ancestry.
I'm from Appalachia, so thank you for not being rude towards us, everyone views us as dumb and illiterate inbreds (which there are some ofc) but in reality, Appalachia is a beautiful place and the people here and very kind.
I'm from Eastern Kentucky if anyone was wondering :)
Me too! Hello neighbor!
@@JW-vi2nh Hi!
UR A CITY SLICKER HILLBILLIES DON'T HAVE INTERNET CONNECTION
Hey y’all, Me to!
@@sabrinathornsbury1861 I wasn't expecting anyone else to reply, but hi there!
_Aggressive banjo-playing in the distance_
more like Appalachian dulcimer playing.
Celtic Revival / Adfywiad Celtaidd pretty much all the sane celts with backbones left for the Americas
@YggdrasilAE paddle faster, this aint NASCAR. 😉
Dammit i told you to just send Tommy down here when you need me to fix that shitty ole still!
@@cadens.308 You can fuck right off there.
All Soviet invasion scenarios stalled in the Appalachian.
I never knew that
Between the natural boundary and the high likelihood of there being more guns than people, I can see why.
Texas too.....
True Story..........
Wasn't Red Dawn based on that scenario?
i grew up in appalachian NC, went to college there too, and know my family comes from the Cherokee tribe and european settlers. my family has been poor whites who hunted their food and got through harder times than i could ever imagine. i enjoy studying the complex history, identity, and perception of appalachains. thank you for this video 🤍
Just started learning more about the Appalachian area and the people there, and it's definitely nice to find videos that aren't just hateful or focusing on negative stereotypes. Obviously there's gonna be.... not so great people almost anywhere you go, but from literally everything factual I can gather, most all Appalachian folks are honest, hard working, kind people ☺️
I honestly don’t count or at all consider county Pike county in Pennsylvania as “Appalachia”. I still think it is more of NYC metro/Philly Metro because a lot of people from Philly, NYC, NJ go to the poconos and catskill mountains on a regular basis to go skiing and snow tubing.
One of my most favorite quotes is from JFK when he campaigned through West Virginia: “The sun doesn’t always shine in West Virginia, but the people always do.”
As someone who is also learning about this culture for a college paper, it is very interesting
Wow what rich culture Appalachian people have and such a beautiful geographical landscape. If I ever visit America in the future I’d love to visit the Appalachia region. Greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪
You’d see lots of Irish faces! I never realized until I vacationed in Ireland how close East Tennessee people were to the Irish.
I live in Bristol,TN. USA.friend. I love it here! I'd like to visit Ireland myself!
@@chazbell754 hello from Johnson city Tennessee
@@thatgardeninggirl2864 hey! You are just 30 min. Drive from my location! Cool!
@@thatgardeninggirl2864 your location is just 30 min drive from my location!
It’s nice to see someone talking about the history of the area instead of poking fun at the backwards stereotypes that seem to dominate the nation’s view of us.
Agreed, I'm not from Appalachia myself but some of the friendliest people I've ever met are from this region
In the bayou we often talk backwards a bit in English cause the French and Spanish history word structure is different
@@kakefyll Dolly Parton!
I'm from Northwest Georgia. I've always loved the beauty of my area of the world.
I mean some of them aren’t stereotypes
I am a proud, educated "Appalachian Hillbilly". I have lived in a 'Holler' in SE Ky my entire life. I have visited and worked in other places but my heart is here. It is beautiful and filled with caring/protective people. Thank you for shining a little light on my neck of the woods.
What's a "holler?"
A Hollow (pronounced holler in hillbilly slang - LoL) is the low lying ground between two mountains.
As a proud Appalachian at heart. There is no place like home. I find myself dreaming of the mountains from my childhood. It's only when I go back and see it's grace that I truly feel whole.
Coming from a Kentucky hillbilly who wears shoes, still has all of his teeth, showers daily, and enjoys your informative videos, thank you!
@Sheckie Shabang country people wear tennis shoes and flip flops still.
I'm from Asia and a fan of mountain horror/gore films from Hollywood. Sorry to ask, but how did those stories come to films? How do they affect your communities?
@@ProximaCentauri88 because they're not as developed as the cities, theyre usually made fun of. Hollywood takes that to the extreme, and that stereotype is very difficult to shake off.
You are welcome. There's still a lot to learn
@@ProximaCentauri88 Because in some remote areas of Appalachia, you may come across some inbred families which I suppose is more frequent than in big cities (I read North Carolina has more inbred families than any other state). I am not American but got interested in the subject after I watched this video :
th-cam.com/video/nkGiFpJC9LM/w-d-xo.html
Hope you're not too sensitive as that's sad, impressive and definitely upsetting.
A few years back I heard a story about a census taking place and some guys were sent into a very remote region to take details. They came across a community and struggled to understand what they were saying. To cut a long story short, the locals used a specific term for a broomstick, calling it a broomstale, and they managed to source their roots back to the Black Country in England, just from that one word. Whether it's apocryphal or not I don't know, but I can imagine it being true......especially of you've heard the Black Country dialect.
Reminds me of that one home robbery mission from Red Dead Redemption 2.
So that's where the white people from black county went. Sure ain't there anymore.
In central Appalachia a paper bag is also called a poke, coming from the Scottish word poca
There was a family that used the word fit instead of fight.From Tazwell in northeast Tn.
@@SM-zl4zd same the one with Javier I believe
As a born an raised Appalachian man of South Central Pennsylvania, I applaud this video. I'm sitting on top of one of the many Appalachian Mountains camping for the week just to get away from society for a while. Nowhere has ever felt so much like home than the wooded mountains of my life.
We long for our tribe and region.
Scotlands landscape used to be like that too until they cut down all the forests and called it 'land management', it was not land management, they needed lots of wood to build ships, the very ships that made Brittania rule the waves and create and rig the transatlantic trade so that Britain made all the cash (known as the 2nd British empire 'soft conquest')
You ever hear of driftwood or sterling run? That's where I'm from.
Turn your phone off then haha
@@chrispekel5709 I made this comment 9 months ago... That's laughable considering I'm now sitting in the Colorado Rockies, well the foothills currently. Regardless of what mountain range I occupy, I never completely shut my phone off. Having the understanding that things happen and that I may encounter dangerous wildlife, at no time do I want to wait for my phone to boot up if I have to make an emergency phone call. And considering the fact that now I don't only have Black Bears to deal with, but also Mt. Lions, Grizzlies, Moose, as well as Diamondback Rattlesnakes and Scorpions and Tarantulas. No, I'd rather have my phone on and ready to go in case something happens. I have a 3 year old, accident prone daughter and my accident prone wife who I also have to look after as well. Not to mention I like taking pictures to document the places I've been and some of the gorgeous views I've seen in my travels. I've driven over 3000 since July 5th of 2022, been in over a dozen different states in that time and seen many places most wouldn't even see because they don't leave the highway. And this has all been simply because we can. With having that many miles in such a short time, and many more than that over my almost 32 years, you don't ever completely shut down your phone because you never know when you'll end up in a situation and the only way to fix it is to make a phone call. Sometimes those seconds to a minute it takes for your phone to boot up, you can bleed out from an arterial laceration. If it hadn't been for having my phone on, I wouldnt have known two years ago that my house had caught fire thanks to a roommate that originally left me, and my gf at the time now ex, homeless to begin with. So no, I never shut my phone off and I always make sure I have some way to keep my phone charged at all times as well as active with service. Because of everything I've been through that I never thought I'd have to deal with, you will never catch my phone off or out of service.
I grew up in Appalachia, I thought everything you said was just how things were, once I moved to Texas I realized there was a much different cultural identity
Bless your heart ...for example.
How cute💙
_Remember: "If you pronounce it 'Ap-a-lay-shu' i'm gonna throw an apple atchya'"_
well, not sure what you'll throw at me...but here in NW Florida it's Ap-a-lay-shAH the only thing we pronounce "apple atchya" is the city of Apalachicola...and the Bay of course. lol
@@gidget8717 I think it's the "ia" at the end that for some reason makes the A in "Lach" different. It's like we consider the CH part of the IA syllable. ALl I know it's just in my 50 years I've never heard it pronounced differently. It is strange though how regions do that.
@@HorrorMetalMaestroRedrusty66 Florida doesnt have a right to pitch in on this argument because its not a real state and nowhere near the region
@@StickPeopleAndPuff considering the klansman and the crank head...well...your troll falls flat...bubba..lmao
@@gidget8717 lol..oh yeah, Micanopy is a good one, from Sopchoppy to Suwannee and Two Egg to Eucheeanna and Okahumpka to Wewahitchka we got some REAL strange town names..lol
Appalachian music forms the backbone for American music. Scots-Irish music plus African music combined in this region to make the American music we have today.
American culture as a whole is pretty cool with how it combines elements from different cultures and does new things with them
Music in America is the truest example of the melting pot.
This is absolutely correct !!
As a musician and music producer from LOS ANGELES I have been telling people this for a WHILE. AMERICAN FOLK MIXED WITH AMERICAN BLACK MUSIC gave birth to rock music we onow today thru the folk-blues connection.
Without this.... You dont get Johnny cash, you dont get Robert Johnson, you dont Jerry Lee Lewis, dont get get Elvis, you dont get the Beatles and you dont get led zepplin.... Amd that continues for-ever
True. Country, bluegrass, jazz, R&B, rock, metal, ska, reggae, hip hop, and EDM are all products of this American synthesis between the folk music of the British Isles and the folk music of West and Central Africa which originated in Appalachia.
Alfa Flyt America is NOT a melting pot. Two or three cultures getting along isn’t a melting pot.
I appreciate the fact that you did not slander us as most do, as being dumb, ignorant, hillbillies!! I do not like the word " hillbilly" at all. The implications of that is we're poor stupid people!! Our ancestors were poor mostly but not dumb at all!! Maybe uneducated in a schooling sense but, accomplished what they needed to do!! Farming a land that was hard to do at best, to feed they're families, raised tobacco to take to market and sell. They bartered with each other and trade stores. They had very good common sense. They learned from their Indian neighbors, and each other, being that they were immigrants from different countries. I'm very proud of my Appalachian heritage!!! Irish, Cherokee,
As a modern Irish Ulster man i just want to say you've really knocked it out of the park on this one. You explore the nuance and reasons of who and why very well and you knowledge of ulster platation and irish famine leading to the mass immigration of celts to the americas is a fine bit of history i find is often completely unknown or never taught to many Americans and it should be! Most US citzen know their is a large diaspora of Irish and scottish people there today but many are unaware of the complex history between the two nations that gave rise to it!.
If stars were still a thing id give this vide 5 outa 5 bud. Liked and subed.
As someone raised in a rural, unincorporated town in East Tennessee, I have to say that I loved this video.
Your highlighting of the sensations of isolation and otherness in this region are all too real. When I went to college, both in Undergraduate and Graduate studies, I felt completely isolated.
To this day I barely feel like an American (Not at all an unpleasant feeling given current events).
As the internet continues to make the world smaller, the Appalachian identity feels as if it's shrinking and dying.
Political ideology is becoming the identifying backbone of a people who, as you pointed out, have a history of either ignoring those squabbles or bucking up against them.
I daily commute to an urban area for work, did the same for school, and before I was 18, 95% of my days were spent in a town with less than 2,000 people.
In urban areas, the Appalachian identity seems dead (likely due to immigration from other regions). You'll find traces of that cultural lineage that defines us Appalachians, but as a cultural minority, we're shrinking and dying. I'm sure we'll stick around for many more generations, but more work needs to be done to preserve more than just our region's history. The history of our people, our culture, needs to be preserved.
I think a video like this one is a contribution to that end, and for that, I thank you and say good work here.
Let's do it
I agree, my Father was raised in a little rural east Tn. mountain community of Del Rio located in Cocke county.
We’re still here and more likely to stay that way than change. You have more like you than you probably know. Stay humble. They don’t know we are better than them.
@Johnny White Well make sure to have a bunch of kids and “train them up in the way they should go and, when they are older, they shall not soon depart.” That’s part Good Book and part Mountain wisdom.
LETS FUCKING GO! LONG LIVE APPALACHIA!
Appalachian is far more interesting region than I could have ever imagined , thanks again for broadening my horizon .
My dad is from a poor county in West Virginia and lived in poor hollers. My mom is from Alabama and we live in Alabama. I love the mountains and always have. My grandmother is of Scottish Decent and my grandfather is of German decent (on dads side) Appalachia is a very beautiful and interesting place. The way they build their “towns” and hollers (a place in between two mountains where there are usually homes) Charleston, West Virginia is extremely interesting because it is surrounded by mountains. When my dad was a kid his family had a very very small landscaping business and they helped this rich lady in Charleston who had property on a little hill right above Charleston and from her back porch you could see the gold dome on the capital building. Sorry for the rant but Appalachia is very interesting place and if you get the chance West Virginia is a really cool place in Appalachia.
I'm scottish and very interested in the appalachians, if I ever get to America I would love to visit the mountains of appalachia for a hiking trip! For me, the accent is just beautiful, very warm and welcoming
When the Soviets invade but the mountains start playing country roads
XD LOL
Lol
Idiot,Soviets doesn't exist anymore.
Dušan Radin yeah cause jokes don’t exist
@@mattyboy3576 Dirty jokes?Yes.Funny one? Yes.But if you concider THAT what you wrote a funny one,,make a new material ,please...
i just love the region man, its stunningly beautiful, the rolling hills, country homes, I was recently in west virginia and the carolinas, loved it
@dbltrplx obviously you're shady if that was your experience....
we all have our different opinions
I live in East TN. I can vouch for the clickish behavior. The compassion and affection for one another is sometimes excessive and there is a certain subdued hostility toward new faces. It’s just a way of protecting ourselves from hostile parties that have pillaged the region for so many years. By this point it’s built into the culture. But once you smile and show yourself to not be a threat and your intentions to be good you’ll receive hospitality like you’ve never experienced.
@@BomChickyBowWow You got a puurrty mouth
I drove a navy buddy home to the "panhandle" of maryland back in 1977 and still remember the steep hills and small mountains of the north eastern west virginia area. Gorgeous land !!
My granny grew up in a 1 room shack with 11 siblings and my papaw the same with 7 siblings. My cousin and I are the first 2 to graduate high school and get a college degree. Proud of our Appalachian and Native roots here in western NC. Thank you for taking your time to make this informative video
Im from the border of Appalachia in Virginia and have grown up traveling deeper into it on the weekends with my dad and I am fortunate enough to have seen the world but whenever im in Appalachia the accent and the people bring me back to good memories and the love of the mountains
My family has been in the appalachian region since the 1780s and come from a mixture of Scotch Irish and German. I'm proud of my heritage from these tough survivors. The history of these industrious and God fearing people in east Tennessee where I live is amazing. Don't be fooled by the stereotypes, every farmer I've ever known is a self taught engineer/ and master mechanic. They can do anything with virtually nothing. When the grid crashes and commerce ceases, they'll survive.
I've been trying to trace my family tree the past couple of years, and I found out my grandpa on my mom's side came to White, Tennessee in the early 1800s from England. I haven't been able to go back past 1650 England for that side of the family.
My dad's side of the family, I've been able to trace back to 1294 England. A couple of noted ancestors of mine was Richard Lovelace the poet who wrote "To Althea, from Prison." _"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage."_ His brother Francis Lovelace, second governor of New York and purchaser of Staten Island, was my direct ancestor. He also owned the Lovelace Tavern and was shipped back to England and blamed for the Dutch retaking control of Manhattan. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London until he died in 1675.
My step-dad's family, however, I've been able to trace back to 975 AD Scotland to Strut Harald and his son Thorkell "Longus" "The Tall". I really wish I could go back further, but ancestry sites only give so much free service.
Interestingly enough, all my family seems to have originated from England-Scotland-Sweden-Germany (I suppose they all came from Germania anyway), and all ended up in the Appalachian Mountains around the same time between the 1600s and 1800s.
I've lived in Western North Carolina in Franklin since I was 4 years old, almost 40 years now.
Proud West Virginian here, Descended from immigrant coal miners and "pennsylvania dutch"...Love these videos
WEST VIRGINIA
West Virginia-German and Scots Irish. Don’t live there anymore but miss it daily.
West Virginia! Nana was a farm girl, Papa grew up on a lumber mill. Has anyone else noticed how many West Virginians have brown curly hair blue eyes?
@easy deism Pennsylvania Dutch is just a local dialect of German
@@hollowhoagie6441 Yes we are german "deutsch" immigrants not actually dutch.
Very proud of my Appalachian Foothills of NE Alabama ❤ Like most here, I'm Cherokee, Irish, Scottish and English 😊
There's truly nothing like them mountains. I've lived in Appalachia my whole life minus the last 2 years, and nothing compares to home. My family tree is speckled with Scottish, German and Shawnee and it felt like a warm hug hearing them discussed in this. We also had a population of Italian immigrants in SWVA, which gave us the state's official food: Pepperoni Rolls. I'd love to see a part 2 to this discussing the interesting mix of cultures at length.
Apa-latch-an if you are from North Carolina
Good overview! One small correction: Ireland's great Famine (c. 1845-55) had almost nothing to do with the settling of Appalachia. The latter occurred overwhelmingly in the 1700s, and overwhelmingly by Ulster Presbyterians, who at the time neither suffered the near-slavery of Penal Laws nor enjoyed the privilege of Anglican Establishment/Ascendancy. Most were yeoman farmers and tradesmen, but that was poor enough to feel the pinch of London's mercantilist policies that treated Ireland (as they did the colonies which became the USA) like a foreign country. This pattern changed in the early 19th Century, as the Act of Union (of Great Britain and Ireland) ended mercantilist pressures, Ascendancy privileges were extended to all Protestants, and the Gaelic/Catholic Irish picked up on the strategy of seeking a better life in (by then independent and non-sectarian) America. By the eve of the Famine, Irish emigration had become a largely Catholic affair, and largely to the cities of the North - where industrialization and lack of slave competition meant high demand for unskilled free labor.
Yeah same here in Tennessee
It's Apuh LACH n anywhere in the Appalachians.
Born in WV, lived in NC most of my life.
This is very true. I always would cringe hearing people from other areas of the country say Apa-lay-shun. I'm from NC/TN line (Carter County).
As a european with very little knowledge beyond the 'Hill Billy' stereotype, this was a vert interesting, inofrmative video. Well done!
I tested my DNA through ancestry. I am 51 percent Scotch Irish. I have ethnicity throughout this region that has skipped at least two generations. I have a great deal of pride that connects with this beautiful area where mountains, hollers, family, and simplicity are first and foremost. These people were not poor in spirit, therefore they had more of what really matters.
As someone born and raised in the southern Appalachian area I had to watch this. We actually pronouce it diffrent than the way you are saying it. It is not a Sha sound it is a tcha sound at the end at least in most of the southern half. Also the people of the Apalachian mountians have survived some of the worst educational societal and economic hardships of the entire country and managed to survive them while living in some cases in isolation from the rest of the US. We dont always get credit for that. Most movies dont do the southern part of Appalachia right. It has a rich culture of hardship community and triumph. Our ancestors intermarried with many cultures and races and it gave us in many cases a very interesting history. If you are not at least 3rd generation apalachian you can never truly understand what it is to be. You can't just move to the mountians and say oh I get it becuase you won't.
Amen.
I find it fascinating that people think of Appalachian as being inbred when in fact the mixtures of Scots Irish, English, German, African, and no small amount of American Indian as well as smaller mixtures of Irish, Poles, Jews, French, and Welsh actually make them one of the most genetically diverse populations in the country.
Well my family intermarried with other cultures and other races but I met plenty of people while living in West Virginia (and I'm 4th generation not 3rd thanks) that clearly did not. You can tell. You can tell from their features and their lifestyle something just isn't right. There were still dirty kids in my elementary school in the 1980s. Not the 60s. I wasn't alive for all that. But the 80s. THE 80s!!! It's not just back then it's within the last 20 years there are still "those people" and they aren't even trying to triumph by developing DIY farming skills. Some are. There are definitely artisans and farmers and crafts-people. But that's not the whole story. Don't deny it.
@@jabujolly9020 well there is a lot of inbreeding in the Appalachians due to mountainous isolation. Then there is the problem of it becoming normalized even after the world "opened up" through the highway system in the 1950s and 60s. You can research it, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina are within the most inbred states. They just are. I have no shame in admitting this fact because I know my parents weren't related to each other, nor were my grandparents. I remember growing up there were entire families that gave me the creeps.
The origin of the name "is" pronounced Apple-atcha. My family started in Jamestown & grew w/the country across the south east to west into Kentucky. Amazing that I have direct ancestors that literally built this country in the history books like Nicolas Matiau who started Yorktown
Equally amazing are my ancestors that also built this country with their hands, on farms, in the coal mines, on the oil fields, in the wars, heads of ministries etc. Proud of each direct & indirect ancestor like Armigal Wade & Alexander Mills... We are ALL AMERICANS & are woven into the fabric of America.
'Hill Billies' refers to the prevalence of the name 'William', aka/shortened to 'Billy'. this name is popular amongst protestants from Northern Ireland and Scotland post-1690, after the Protestant Prince (then to become King) William of Orange conquered the Catholic forces of King James, at the Battle of the Boyne, for info.
@TATANCA great lineage. Billy is still a very common name in the UK today.
...and I, a proud Scot, love to watch the Orange Walk in July as we celebrate the victory over the Catholics that allowed the Bible to be unchained from the RC pulpits and translated into the words of the people.
The Dark Ages were all about burning catholic priests at the stake for committing this crime of teaching the Bible to their congregants in their own language.
If you can read the Bible you know that salvation is a "free gift" and that "the only intermediary between God and man is Jesus Christ.".
This renders priests impotent to forgive sins (as if a man can forgive you your sins!) and blows the whole "catholic church is the only church in Christendom" myth apart.
Frankenpope is the perfect illustration of the "infallibility" of the Pope!
To be clear, I am talking about the catholic church and NOT catholic people. I have known many wonderful Christians who attend the catholic church. It is their doctrine and dogma and lack of Biblical authority that hurts the catholics, not those who truly seek God, as He promised that He would reveal Himself to anyone who looked honestly for Him.
@@kirstyi7860 there is no intermediary, agree but some people need a helping hand with interpretation. Agree no intermediary can forgive sins on behalf of God. That's a one-one matter.
@TATANCA same king billy
@@kirstyi7860 This really isn't the place for it, but you do know that there were vernacular bibles in Catholicism, right? And nowhere in the Bible does it say that the Bible is the only authority. Check 2 Thess 2:15.
I am the first Catholic first son of a first son in my line for 500 years, and I've had to have deliverance from Freemasonry in my bloodline. That's where Protestant pride got me!
I grew up in the western part of Tennessee, but I went to graduate school in the Appalachian region of Tennessee. I didn't realize how different the two sides of the state were - from geography to dialect. You did a great job and it is quite an interesting video!
I am from Maine and when you talked about Native Americans and the map you put up is just says other tribes. A few off the top of my head are Passamaquoddy, Micmac, Penobscot and Maliseet. There are a few more but these are the ones I know for sure. Thank you for your video. It’s always fun to learn how other people live in different areas of the world.
Masaman, That was well done !! I as a descendant of Appalachia thank you for this video. My great grandfather was from the region of the 'Ol Virginias and i myself have a lot of the mixes that you've mentioned ! You even nailed it pretty much on all the historical areas. Thank you.
Damn, I learnt more in 11 minutes than all my entire history lessons at school. Top work mate 😎👍
Just thinking the same thing.
Shtfu and glance through novelties
It's because most people didn't pay attention in social studies or history in school. It was my favorite subject I hated the other students not taking it seriously.
I hear ya, but they could have made it a little more interesting to the young kids leaving them wanting more.
That’s your fault at that point
I found this documentary so fascinating and very informative. It basically confirms what I already know and have learned from my family history and from my DNA test. I am of Scot-Irish, German & English decent. A smidgen of Scandinavian is in me too. I am 4th generation in this country. My family on both sides planted themselves in Sevierville Tennessee. I have many relatives that still live there. The Conatser's, which are German (Grandma side). Then she married a Scot/Irish, McCullough's (Grandpa). This video was very educational & makes perfect sense to me. Ty!
The Irish parts gets exaggerated quite a lot. They were Protestants ( mostly Presbyterians) from southern Scotland and northern England, who were essentially part of a land grab in Ulster - spending many years massacring, and getting massacred by, the actual catholic Irish. Many were emigrating across the Atlantic quickly - within a generation of two. The degree to which they were “Irish”, or "Celtic" (whatever that means) for that matter, was minuscule. In fact, most Irish would have been, and probably still are, massively insulted by the use of the word “Irish”, in Scots-Irish.
thank you for saying this
I’m only three minutes in but I am completely impressed, and I did Appalachian Studies as part of my PhD. Great work!
Also, while Appalachians share some similarities to the type of cultural collectives like Latino or Asian Americans, I think Appalachian identity is more akin to Italian-American during the end of the 19th century. That is to say that Latinos are a political identity somewhat imposed internally, while Appalachian identity was imposed externally. Appalachian’s were “othered” to a large degree by popular culture and media of the 19th century including books, plays, magazine articles, vaudeville, and early movies. Many people we call Appalachian historically referred to themselves as Virginian or Kentuckians before anything else. And this was true up to the mid 20th century.
that's really cool. do you know any good sources for research on the topic?
@@Freydis-flowers Henry Shapiro’s Appalachia on Our Mind is a seminal text. I’m partial to Anthony Harkins’ Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon. That mostly examines “hillbillies” as a product of popular culture. “Hillbilly” and Appalachian are not mutually exclusive nor interchangeable. But that book goes to lengths to detail how mass culture influenced our ideas of Appalachianess
@@nlsantiesteban thank you kindly sir.
@@nlsantiesteban Big gov. does that intentionally. They don't want people having the idea that they can ditch the system and live independently. George Washington was given his victory by my/your/our ancestors of Appalachia. He thanked them by having them slaughtered when they refused to pay taxes.
I’m a proud Appalachian-American New Yorker! Yes, Appalachia includes parts of NY. I’m a first generation college graduate, who went to a public high school with 49 students in my class, and I’m an American of English, Dutch, German & Celtic descent.
Me too Schoharie county🤙🤙🤙 they call us SLOUGHTERS which is a derogatory term for us mountain people!!!
@@thomashartmann3466 Steuben County native here!
@@seantitus2769 Steuben county native too.
Broome county, New York
Blessings to you❤️
I’m in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina currently, my moms entire family is from Appalachia, mostly East Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. I have too many stories about my family to include in this comment but I sincerely enjoyed this video!
You have presented the most respectful documentary on my people thT I have seen in 70 years. My home is West Virginia and everytime I watch videos about its history I either cry from a deep pride or because of the disrespectful portrayal of us. I have come to realize that the economic source most prevalent in this diverse region brought about the "cultural traditions " and life ways. My family was coal miners and a coal mining community developed quite differently than say farmers, agriculture -related work. I searched back 5 generations and the fartherest away I could find that from which my ancestors migrated was Virginia. 😊😊 The mines employed many people from far away and so allowed for the diffusion of many ways. I have also found that , when a person speaks, if the "ow" ending of a word becomes "er" or if it becomes an "a" this linguistic difference indicates the regional origin of ancestors. The nasty and ignorant stereotypical image of my people produced YET TO THIS VERY DAY MAKES ME SO ANGRY AND DISGUSTED but it has certainly helped me to have an open mind and heart to "others." Thank you many times over. And, no, we did not marry our family members.
Stereotypes have their roots in actuality experienced by outsiders. They’re not meant to be an accurate portrayal of every single person.
@@tektako Stereotypes ARE meant to influence the perception of a group as successfully as possible by those who created them and caused them to continue to be a part of our culture for as long as we have been a culture. Stereotyping was developed to create division, fear, and separation among us for many many reasons...of course if you meet and become friends with a group member of a stereotyped community and they do not fulfill those characteristics one is supposed to realize that door to truth has been opened. But that is NOT what happens. That one experience leads to " an exception to the rule" application. Look at the shit still being presented as a normal Appalachian family just to continue this element of stupidity and receive audience activity on social media channels - for a few dollars a month. Stereotyping and profiling are methods of distraction from true realities.
@@LINDA-oi4mt Well said! I've travelled around quite a few u.s states from london England and I loved the south and its people I experienced friendly welcoming people with great wit and humour ❤🇬🇧
@@Lady.B.ellinor4971 Thank you. 🌹
You use the word "Scotch" to identify someone from Scotland. I was born and grew up in Glasgow.
I am a Scot or I am Scottish.
Scotch is a drink.
Scotch is now used to refer to the drink; but it was not always so.
The people referred to here were there at a time when it was in common usage and not regarded as a slur *.
I heard it used but once in this presentation and outside of historical writings; I never hear it used.
* Both Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott used it as an adjective.
Watch the video, the phrase is used to describe Ulster-Scots, not Scottish people.
"Scotch-Irish" is an American colloquialism for Scots-Irish. Sure, it's not "proper" English, but since when does language evolve "properly"? For that matter, why would a Scot care about proper English pronunciation? A true scotsman 😉 would be speaking Albannach anyway, innit?
Kirsty I, my grandmother, who was from Inverness, caught me saying “Scottish” once. Only once. She told me it was scot or scotch, the ish was for the English or the Irish. You never argued with her.
Don't sell yourself short, you're still quite the drink. 😉
Thank you for your extremely fascinating & comprehensive documentary.🏆
I wouldn't claim to be an Appalachian myself, I was brought up in the midwest in a middle income household, but I'm well aware my great grandma was, she is no longer with us, but she was one of the most loving women I've ever known, I've never seen her mad, ever in my whole life. She always told me that I was part Hillbilly/Hillfolk and no matter what everyone said, I should be proud of that heritage, and for her, I always will be. Thanks for giving her people and homelands the respect they deserve !
Born and raised in the foothills of the Southern Appalachian chain. I appreciate so much about this video, but I especially appreciate the commentary on my ancestors views of slavery. Southern people in the US get painted as being extremely racist, but that's just never been my experience. You find the odd racist sometimes, but those people generally speak their racism in whispers cause they know the majority of us aren't about that bs. Thank you for showing us in an honest light. It's refreshing. This video needs so many more views.
My adoptive family has been in the southern Appalachian region since before the revolutionary war and I love this
Peter Ordinary I know you tried to get me there but yes, I actually have some pretty notorious people in my family, from the Bushwhacker brothers and the rogue general who didn’t wish to fight for the confederates anymore and had to kill 10 men to stay hidden, it does seem to be like that. Not worse than many back in those times, though.
@Peter Ordinary r/therewasanattempt
@Peter Ordinary Also, the Native North Americans were murderers, too. The mound builders lived there first but they fought and the mound builders were driven South to the Andes Mountains and Mexico. They became the Aztecs and Incas.
LittleArmyNut 🙌🏻🙌🏻 thank you
@Peter Ordinary why are you like this?
From Western PA. Glad to see people talk about where I came from.
Beaver county PA here 😀
@@raphmaster23 Westmoreland County
I currently live in rural PA, and we all have weird ethnicity mixes. I'm a mix of German, Welsh, and Cherokee. But seeing an explanation of the areas that I call home is immensely appreciated. (Btw, northen Appalachians say Appa-lay-shu, and southerners say Appa-latch-uh)
I’m from Pennsylvania also and I’m a mix similar in ethnicities I’m mainly Italian but also some German, Irish, Welsh, Cherokee, and Czechoslovakian
@@LovingDeantheGodMachine333 Yep.Your facial structures is from italy definieltly.
@@musfikinsan3423 I’m also a very hairy man like my Italian friends tend to be 🤣
@@LovingDeantheGodMachine333you’re either czech or slovak, not czechoslovak
They may be a bit different but these people are some of the nicest individuals one could meet.
Thank you for sharing! This makes me proud to be a Pennsylvanian
Good overview! One small correction: Ireland's great Famine (c. 1845-55) had almost nothing to do with the settling of Appalachia. The latter occurred overwhelmingly in the 1700s, and overwhelmingly by Ulster Presbyterians, who at the time neither suffered the near-slavery of Penal Laws nor enjoyed the privilege of Anglican Establishment/Ascendancy. Most were yeoman farmers and tradesmen, but that was poor enough to feel the pinch of London's mercantilist policies that treated Ireland (as they did the colonies which became the USA) like a foreign country. This pattern changed in the early 19th Century, as the Act of Union (of Great Britain and Ireland) ended mercantilist pressures, Ascendancy privileges were extended to all Protestants, and the Gaelic/Catholic Irish picked up on the strategy of seeking a better life in (by then independent and non-sectarian) America. By the eve of the Famine, Irish emigration had become a largely Catholic affair, and largely to the cities of the North - where industrialization and lack of slave competition meant high demand for unskilled free labor.
Makes me proud to be a Ohioan? I dont know even what to call people like myself that live in my home state of Ohio.
LordOfTheEdge Well not all of Pennsylvania but most of it
newb mann Lol. Ohioese?
@@BradleyGearhart I guess
Some of the friendliest people when traveling Iv'e meet are from Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri. From a Hispanic mid age male[ if that means anything, it doesn't to me]. Beautiful country too!
I'm glad you got a friendly reception.
Most people outside of the USA only care about NY or LA, but imo the Midwest and the South are so much more fascinating. Rural America is ethereal. Thanks for the video, cheers from France.
There’s a lot about American history I think you’re missing out on…. but okay 😂
That’s bc nyc is fun lively and diverse .. but not a place to experience Mother Nature
Yeah inner city people huff too much fart fumes to understand anything.
I work in a coal mine in Appalachia. Fantastic video! Very well done
I'm an 8th generation descendent of Capt. Jacob Pricket from West Virginia, where his old home and fort is now a State Park and living history site.
I live in the north of Ireland I have done a DNA test. I keep getting people America who genetically linked to, people 3rd to 5th cousins. So if any of my cousins see this hello from Ireland
🇮🇪 🤚🇺🇸
We all kin round yonder. 🤗
its called Northern Ireland not the North, it isn't game of thrones LOL
@@juliuscrassus1121 and theyre generally prods,not Catholics.
@@bazzatheblue saying prods is bigoted and sectarian.
julius crassus I'm a prod,don't bother me.
Little fun fact: I live in WV and there’s a ton of Italian-Americans where I live. He talked a lot about Irish, Scot, and English settlers, but not them for the most part. There’s an Italian Heritage Festival pretty close to where I live every year. I know lots of Italians so I just thought it was kinda cool idk. Also, if you ever come to WV eat some pepperoni rolls, they’re the best.
WV is a "suburb" of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh is by far the most ethnically diverse area of Appalachia, so yes you will find many ethnic groups in WV, especially as you get closer to Pittsburgh. The best was going to Italian-American weddings in the mining villages there. Talk about a big party!
My dad's side of the family is very Appalachian.
People I knew growing up (Midwest) never understood why I identified my ethnicity as American. I didn't even know it was an Appalachian thing, but it makes a lot of sense.
I am also proud of my Appalachian roots. I am originally from Eastern Ohio. I wish our region had more political clout to help our people back home.
This video is A++. I learned more from you than I learned in all my high school history class. Thanks.
Thanks for this video!! Both of my parents are Appalachian and I grew up in the region. My familial ties to the region run super deep but the history isn’t often spoke about. I’m also Scot-Irish with some other DNA mixed in there 😂
I live in Franklin County, Virginia! I love it here, despite grandad coming from upstate South Carolina, Spartanburg area, my family is not from the area at all! I'm an immigrant from NYC suburbs...the people here are kind, beautiful, and brilliant. Not to mention, very religious, which makes the crime, negativity, and nastiness I found in NY, almost nonexistent, here. There's a higher standard for kindness, here. Good, decent human beings! And way more kindly racial relations, down here, despite what some outsiders think. All colors of farmer, sit together for breakfast, at 6am, at the local general store...and they're all, like, over the age of 55! It's honestly a beautiful thing! What decent place, filled with decent people!
I will tell you 1 thing: few Italians, few Jews! Also, very, VERY few East Asians. So our restaurant bought food is quite limited! No bagel stores, few pizza places(they're awful), no Thai, and very few Chinese, take out, here in Frankin County...so weird! Lots of country, tasty, buffet food, if you want to drive a half hour, and I live on a lake, so some high end restaurants on the water, but not many. I like it quiet, but I do enjoy people watching, at times, so if this happens, I go to Roanoke, or Charlottesville! Both beautiful, "cities".
As a proud Appalachian, thank you for this.
GUTEN TAG HERR STUMP , YOU ARE GERMAN!
I'm from northern Alabama. My family sir name has an O' in front of it. The area I grew up in didn't have a name. It was just called,THE MOUNTAIN. I found this fascinating.
We are looked down upon because of where we live & it can be a hard life,especially for a girl/ woman but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I've come to understand that you shouldn't measure someone's inteligance or wisdom based on their level of education. My grannie helped teach me that. After doing a little travelling I've also come to realize we may be a little tougher & meaner than most folks. Like I said,its a hard life.
Lo que la naturaleza no te da, Salamanca (una universidad) tampoco da.
Intelligence*
@@NC-do7fv 💀 dawg
I agree there's many measures of intelligence. My father for example can build and fix almost anything and he's made himself a lot of money off real-estate. He didnt go to college. I see people with masters degrees today saying men can get pregnant and they cant fix anything and they live in poverty with a masters degree. So whos more intelligent? The one who has real life skills or the one who can win a spelling B?
How inbred are you guys?
This is so interesting and I like that you acknowledge the mixed ancestry of this region. I have a small amount of the European heritage that you mentioned and a mixed race great grandfather that came from the south and had family that migrated to Pennsylvania and New York in particular and it makes me wonder if an ancestor came from the Appalachians.
Born and raised in those mountains there a reservation in North Carolina where I was raised I sure do miss the sheer beauty of that place proud to be Native American
Fascinating stuff! It's especially fascinating to watch when you are literally sitting in one of the areas mentioned in this video. Anyway, here are a few ideas. I also want to mention the topics I have reiterated in several other comment posts on video (don't feel it's necessary them again).
1. Are Italians the modern day descendants of the Romans?
2. Population of The Vatican
3. The four Sanskrit villages of India (where Sanskrit is still spoken as an everyday language)
4. The specifically Yiddish aspects of Birobidzhan
5. Why does Bjork (pure Icelander) look somewhat Asian? Genetics of Iceland examined more in depth.
6. Sea Peoples and the modern day descendents
7. Most surprising genetic traits that are unique from everywhere else in isolated populations
8. What if the French had successfully colonized Kerguelen?
9. Christmas Island, Cocos and Keeling Islands, Torres Strait Islands, populations of Australian, New Zealand, and Papuan Territories
10. Pre-Islamic Africa analyzed more in depth, specifically Sub-Saharan Africa.
I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and this video speaks very much to my experience as a child and teenager. Thank you for making videos that--whatever the ethnicity or origin of the group--treats them with dignity and respect.
Because they have a white skin colour
@@dehliafredericks3573 I wanted to do justice to your comment so I rewatched the video. I feel like it doesn't whitewash the Appalacians and gives ample credit to the different peoples of color who contribute to the region's population. I am a mixture of African, Native American, and white genetics which is typical of the region, so I have to respectfully disagree that (1) "they have a white skin colour" and (2) that they are treated with dignity for this reason.
@@dehliafredericks3573 your not real, no matter what color your skin is, ppl from Appalachia are the butt of so many jokes it hurts. Stop baiting people
@@tek5692 white people can't exist on their own in peace anywhere or else it's bad or something according to low life POC
Appalachians are American ethnically as far as I'm concerned. We've been here way longer than the country and my family signed the declaration of independence. I think we deserve that title.
While I'm not an Appalachian (Brazilian), I grew up in Hagerstown, MD, which was my first home in the US. It was where I learned English and would sleep with the Mountains on the horizon. So, I would spend a lot of time either at the foot or in those woods skiing, camping, getting maple syrup or ice cream, visiting the St Mary grotto close by, or just enjoying the view. Boy Scouting also exposed me to a lot of it (C&O Canal and Paw-Paw Tunnel ring a bell) (Many trips to WV helped too). Even my school's Outdoor School program was held in the middle of the Appalachians. All of these experiences will always give me a special connection to the Greater Appalachians that I still carry to this day.
The connection even followed me to North Carolina in the Triad region (middle of the state). Most of the Boy Scout trips were involved with the Blue Ridge (a sub-section of the Appalachians): from backpacking across Grayson Highlands to summiting Mt. Mitchell to eating BBQ after climbing Roan Mountain to confronting the New River. Thanks to Scouting (and my family visiting the woods frequently), my awe and love for the mountains never wavered and probably never will as long as I am alive. Thank you for making this video and teaching me more about the area where I grew up in.
As someone from eastern Kentucky, thank you for making this.
I feel like i know that profile picture
@@danielgorzelniak3209 it's varg vikerness. I'm not a supporter or anything, I just think his expression is the perfect meme
Johnson county (EKY)
Originally from Perry county KY
All my dad's family is Cherokee and Irish and is from wv, I love it here
I'm irish, we love the native American tribes, especially the Choctaw
There are a lot of good people that live there. Their culture is rich and interesting. The Appalachian people have a lot of talent and are passionate about the history and skill sets that have stood the test of time.
As a proud Appalachian from the great smoky mountains of east TN. My ancestors were among the first too volunteer to fight for the independence of this country we gained in 1776. I thank you for cutting through the stereotypes and representing us well. Our heritage is rich, and we are proud of it! Thank you much sir 🙏
I love my WNC heritage. Good video, thank you. Not many people cover our culture and hardly anyone knows who we are as a people.
Appalachia is one of the most underrated geographical regions in the US. Yinz know what I mean n’at?
You must be from "the Paris of Appalachia," otherwise known as Pittsburgh. I've lived in northern Appalachia almost all of my life. I was born and raised in the Appalachian part of New York (yes, part of New York is located in Appalachia) and I've lived in The Burgh for the last 30 years.
sarco64 yes sir you hit it right on the nose! Good to see a fellow Yinzer!😃
@@sarco64 I didn't know New York was part of the Appalachia, this is so interesting.
sarco64 there’s a French part??!?! I’m from southern Appalachia so I thought the only European influences were German, Scots-Irish, Scottish, Irish, and some English
Dixieland think it’s a joke. Like the Paris of something or somewhere would be the fancy/metropolitan part of it.
This is what educating sounds like. Unbiased explanation of what’s available.
I'm from North Carolina and am primarily descended from Scotch-Irish and Palatine Germans who settled in the Blue Ridge Mountains around the same time. My family had mostly forgotten their roots but one cultural artifact that survived is my family's heirloom quilts that are commonly associated with Scotch-Irish settlers.
In East Tennessee, it is pronounced like I'm going to throw an Apple at cha!
Why?
@Possumlove interesting. I grew up in PA. We always called it appa lay sha
Apple at cha - Knoxville, TN
@@ogb4205 because that is how it is pronounced.
From Johnson City, TN, raised in Princeton, WV... It’s “Apple at Cha.”
It’s that Scots Irish culture that makes hill people so darn good at embellishing the truth. A good story is better than a true one.
Do not say Scots-Irish, it's a swear word. ssshhhh
Countess Ratzass so very true 😂😂
Drakilicious Wtf is your problem!? You clearly have a very personal issue that you like to take out on an entire population of strangers lmao Your comments make absolutely no sense... funny you should be calling someone else dumb but you had a “real Irishman” tell you a bunch of non-coherent bullshit (Don’t believe you) and that’s supposed to make the rest of us look like fools? Hahaha gtfo and btw the word hick is not offensive
@Drakilicious I'm from Northern Ireland we use the term Ulster Scots here.
The 1790-1810 census of the Appalachians shows the majority of settlers were English, followed by Scottish, some households stating English and Scottish, 10 Welsh households, some stating English and Welsh 8 German households, 1 French, No Irish.
I guess the people who look down upon the people in the Appalachian region must be other Americans, because as a foreigner I’ve always wanted to meet the Appalachia, specially West Virginia
A big part of the culture was The Chestnut Trees. They didn't need to farm. They didn't to trade for supplies. The nuts fed hogs and turkeys meanwhile the wood was durable, water-mold resistant, and many chestnut wood structures are all over the place and look nearly new. A lot of old fences, barns, and "mysterious stairs" in woods in the era are made from chestnut wood and well over 100 years old.
Around the 1900s a blight came and it forced urbanization and people moving out of the area because you could no longer homestead efficiently. I met hardened elderly "hillbilly" men that have cried telling me about childhood memories of chestnut trees and all the money/food/joy/celebration it brought them. I only met two people like that who first-hand saw the trees. There's a lot of people who said their grandparents would get the same sort of grief talking about it.
I'm a proud Appalachian from Pa. Proud of my heritage and the beautiful town I live in. Beautiful country. Wouldn't live any where else. Born and raised. Served seven years in the us army. Was in Alabama, Grafenwohr, Germany, Bayreuth, Germany. Both in Bavaria. Beautiful country, but I came home and stayed in my hometown. Who reading these still use words like pecker wood, paper poke, tote, jeet ( did you eat ) , down yonder, holler ( hollow) my mom always told me and my brother to go to the store and you best not be squirreling around. And to many more to list. Thank you for the great video and not making us look like backwards inbreds.
Nice north by pike county and the poconos or the other part in south pa? Ever been to the nj side by stokes del water gap or highpoint?
I've always said that Pittsburgh, PA is actually the capital city of Appalachia
Nuthin werse than NEBBY naybers. Woosh the clothes we're gowin dahntahn.
@@nobillclinton I wuz headed to the Jine Iggle on the Sous Side to buy sum gumbands and jumbo when I saw sum jagoff wearin a Brahn's jerzee.
Squirrelling around, love it! I've been trying for years to find an expression that adequately
describes my mother-in-law, and I've finally found it!
For a fascinating read about Appalachia when it was still very isolated culturally and little-known by the outside world, try Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders from 1913.
a lot of folks don,t know but highlanders were fightin the spanish for the british before the usa was born. they were given land in return. many married native americans. chief mcintosh is the descendent of one of them. as was chief ross.
You haven't been to family Christmas in 2 years. What happened to you, Frederick? You used to be somebody I could trust.
i have lived in the foothills of appalchia my entire life and boyyyyyy just let me say thank you for this comprehensive look. we don't let a lot of information out thats for sure, so having a voice in this video is huge.
I'm Scottish born and raised, but my father is Irish and find all the ulster American history so interesting, a huge percentage of entire generations left Ireland and Scotland to chase a new lift in America
My ancestors were Scottish and Irish are well represented in the Carolina's, Virginia and West Virginia. Starting with the fourth generation back there are four generation's of Chickasaw with one Cherokee woman and a Sioux woman marrying in these generations. This is on the maternal side. Interestingly, we have family members with olive skin the reason why we didn't know until I worked on our genealogy recently. Love your work Mason.
Thanks.
Were the Scotch-Irish from Ulster? Do you know about when and why they left Ulster?
@@garygralton7570 sorry id have to.go into my gen file but i think it only show the dates they immigrated to the US.