Q. Can you help me trace a kidnapped Scottish relative who landed in the Carolinas in the mid- to late 1700s?
A. According to the Settling of Carolina website by J.D. Lewis, Scottish emigration soared after England and Scotland formed the United Kingdom in 1707. Highland Scots from the northwest were most desperate to leave, especially after the 1746 British suppression of the Jacobite Rebellion. Emigration brokers and colonial land speculators sought these tough but impoverished people, who landed in frontier valleys such as along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Note, however, that some so-called Scots in America actually came from Ulster in Northern Ireland, which their ancestors had colonized in the 1690s.
Two books written by Peter Wilson Coldham and published by the Genealogical Publishing Co., include indentured servants who came to the Carolinas: The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775 and Emigrants in Chains, 1607-1776. You also can search them in three databases on subscription site Ancestry.com:
- Bonded Passengers to America (Volumes I and II) 1615-1775 & 1617-1775
- Bonded Passengers to America (9 vols. In 3)
- More Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775
For data specifically about the Carolinas, try the two-volume Directory of Scots in the Carolinas, 1680-1830, by David Dobson, also from Genealogical Publishing Co. and available on Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com has other works by Dobson you may find useful; search the card catalog for Dobson or Scots. To learn more about indentured servants in North Carolina, see the chapter in Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina by John Spencer Bassett.
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A version of this article was published in the January/February 2015 Family Tree Magazine. Last updated: November 2025
