Re: Johnson surname-What nationality?
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In reply to:
Re: Johnson surname-What nationality?
5/09/99
My Nova Scotia wife's Johnson family had lived several generations in Presbyterian north Ireland when they were persuaded to emigrate to NS in 1761 to resettle lands vacated by the Acadians expelled in 1755. From such sources as I have read the Johnsons of present-day Ulster had probably originated from the lowlands of Scotland at a period when Presbyterianism was out of favor there as it also became in Ireland.One source has hypothesized that the lowland Scot Johnson name may have derived from the invading Scandinavian "Johns" intermarrying with the families of the Roman soldiery of Hadrian's Wall history. The Roman soldiery had lived there in well-established communities over several centuries, doubtless marrying into the non-Roman neighbors. Thus when the time came that the shrinking power of the Roman Empire compelled a military withdrawal back across the English Channel, many, perhaps most of the garrison families along the Wall chose to stay instead of going to a land quite foreign to them. Thus, there doubtless was an infusion of Roman blood in the Johnsons, as there may well have been of Norman blood later.
Back to Nova Scotia,, there were other Johsons who settled not far away from my wife's Ulster Irish ancestors even earlier in the 18th century. Recruited from various points in NE England they are referred to as the Yorkshire English, unhappy at home because of strictures placed on the ownership of land following the English civil war of the 17th century led by Oliver Cromwell.
In short, expecting to find the very first place from which the "Johnsons" originated would seem to be an exercise in futility, as it is with most of the widely common English language surnames of the present century. As a younster, when most of the map of the world was red, I was taught that it is thehybrid background of the British people that gives us our charm and grace!