What is in the Name Curry? Travels to the Isle of Arran

I have never lived near any Curry, other than my immediate family. I grew up in Illinois among those with Croation, German, and English names. I do remember one Curry family in town for a short time. When I went to study in England for a semester as an undergraduate, I kept asking people, “Where do Curry’s came from?” There was even a store chain by the name. I only got vague answers. 

Minnesota, where my Curry family settled in the 1850s, had few Curry’s. People were mainly German and Scandinavian. I took Swedish for a semester when an undergrad and we only had two people in the class without Swedish names--myself and a Malcomb. It turned out the Malcomb was really an Anderson, but there were so many on the ship when it arrived, they were given the name Malcomb. I had to endure hostile questions about why I was taking Swedish.

 I worked for the Mennonite Central Committee and, of course, I did not have a Mennonite name either—Harder, Friesen, Ewert, Yoder, for example. So, I was asked--who was I?

Then years among Dutch Americans goes without comment.

I got hints of places where Curry’s were plentiful such as Ontario, Canada where I had a Fulbright Fellowship, and Pennsylvania where Scots and Scots-Irish settled. But in all the places I have lived, I often got a comment like, “I know a Curry…(pause)…but they wouldn’t be related.” Thus, I discovered that Curry was not uncommon among African-Americans who had come north with the Great Migration. Once I was called up for jury duty in Grand Rapids, MI and got an overview of my unusual status. As the cross-section of the county population’s last names were read, there were Dutch Americans, Polish Americans, Latinos, and the more British names like mine were all African Americans. When I worked in Buffalo, NY in 2020, I was explaining my finding to some co-workers and my Black colleagues started laughing. When it was announced that I was coming to work there, they thought I was Black because of my name.

I started my search for “my people” in graduate school in the early 1980s when I lived in Minnesota. I used microfiche census records, county land records, and others to try to trace my Curry side, similar to the records I used for my dissertation research. I found that John Curry, my Great Great Grandfather, came to East Prairieville, MN, near Faribault around 1857 and he was born in Ohio. Why Faribault?  Here is quote from Ralph Brown’s classic work, Historical Geography of the United States:

“In the summer of 1857, the new town of Faribault was said to be so full of strangers that, … ‘it was almost impossible to get a place to sleep at any price. Real estate dealers, lawyers, and business men in general are here by hundreds. The opening up of the land office has drawn them. It is estimated that over 1000 men have arrived within the last two days. Board at the best houses ranges at from 3 to 6 dollars a day. No one grumbles, for a good many are making thousands daily.’” (p.333).

Clearly he came for land. John Curry married Elizabeth Thompson, a first-generation Scot, whose parents and siblings had immigrated to Canada and then she and her brother to Minnesota. They soon homesteaded in Meeker County, MN and I have their homestead certificate. They were all Presbyterians, of course. That was as far as I could do. The census records did say that while John Curry was born in Ohio, his parents were born in Maryland and Pennsylvania. For many years I took the MA to mean Massachusetts and so searches in census records there led nowhere.

I got busy raising my daughters, one who is a redhead, and at the same time, the worldwide web was created and the human genome mapped. My older brother needed a new problem to solve so he began to add to some of my early work and traced the Minnesota Curry roots back 7 generations to the Philadelphia area, and then to near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and then Columbiana, Ohio before the migration to Minnesota. We even found 5th cousins in Ohio when we drove down a road and saw a name associated with the Curry’s in Minnesota and stopped to talk. Talking to these cousins led us to understand that John Curry went to Minnesota with an aunt and uncle on his mother’s side, and sister.

In 1782, James Curry was born to John and Nancy, the earliest we could trace our Curry line. They clearly came to Pennsylvania prior to 1782. They were poor and landless and left few records to record their existence. This did all vaguely fit with some family lore and with the history of migration patterns from Scotland or Northern Ireland. The migration from Pennsylvania to Ohio was expected, but the move to Minnesota was unusual. Historical geographer John Hudson has shown how migration west tended to be along lines of latitude. Curry migration should have been from Ohio to Indiana, for example. And my brother did find that many parts of the family did follow this pattern. We were something of an aberration.

But still, “Where did the Curry’s come from?” They probably came prior to the Revolutionary War when the U.S. was part of the U.K., so no ships’ manifests listed arrivals. And everything I read about immigration to the U.S. from Scotland, or Northern Ireland seemed to peak a bit later than the Mid 1700s, after the enclosure movement began to push people off the land.

In comes genetics. My brother had his Y chromosome DNA studied for over 100 genetic markers. A particular haplotype that he possesses is associated with five surnames and a map was recently published of genetic haplotypes and surnames. The surnames occur frequently in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, but first, in Scotland on the Isle of Arran. The Isle of Arran is an Island off the west coast of Scotland. Only 167 square miles, and a population of about 4,600. This island is one of the few locations with this particular haplotype. And this is also a place where these few surnames are found in close proximity to each other—Miller, Currie, and MacAlister.

This was enough information to make me start to look at maps of the Isle of Arran and try to get a sense of the place. I had to figure out how to get there to go hiking. Arran is supposed to be “little Scotland.” Within this island, you have all the elements of Scotland from highlands to coastal towns. Several years ago I bought my younger brother and myself copies of the book by Paddy Dillon, Walking on Arran. My brother managed to get there with his family several years ago. I finally got to spend 3 days there with my cousin Naomi last summer, in between work-related events in the UK and Ireland. Naomi is on my mother’s side, so is not a Curry, but is always up for an adventure. And the trip was awesome. 

We took the ferry to the community of Brodick, on Arran. I asked Naomi what she thought about Hike 1 in Walking on Arran—were we up to it? Most hikes in the book are in the range of 7-10 miles so they are not strolls in the park. Hike 1 was 10.5 miles total from our hotel in Brodick at sea level to the Goatfell peak, at 2790 feet. The climb worried me a bit, but Naomi was all in but thought we should do it our first day. We could take our time. We did shorten the route by starting in Cladach and eliminating the walk through town.

 The hike was not easy—rocks and boulders almost the entire way. We quicky moved out of the trees and into the area of heather. We did make it to the top and back! We were sore but happy. I bought a mug to use for my coffee to remember the climb that said: Goatfell Conqueror. Naomi said that this was the hardest hike she had ever done…

The second day we needed to choose a different part of the island and something that would allow us to recover from the rocky climb to Goatfell.  We drove on the road through the center of island which crossed over highlands. On the west side of the island we walked on the Machrie Moor Stone Circle path. This area was closer to where the Currie’s originated and was a beautiful and green valley, in sharp contrast to the stones of Goatfell. The stone circles are from the Neolithic and Bronze Age and also include hut circles that signal that this was a agricultural community.

We continued south along the coastal road around the south end of Arran and ended up at Whiting Bay where we hiked up to the Glenashdale Falls.

The third day we took on a more challenging hike once again—about 8 miles and 1100 feet. This hike included a section of the coastal path and started and ended in Lochran, on the northeastern point of Arran. Along this path we found the Hutton Nonconformity, a famous geological site that contributed to our understanding of geologic history, walked through boulder fields and rocky coastlands. We encountered one other hiker near the beginning of our walk who looked at us and said, “you know this is a hard hike.” We ignored his comment. We had just hiked Goatfell. We followed along the coast until we came to Laggan cottage, a white abandoned building, and then followed the path up and over the hills behind and back to Lochran. As we hiked back over the hills, the clouds began to move in. We began with sheep and ended with sheep. What a beautiful day!

When Naomi and I visited the local historical museum, I asked about the migration pattern from Arran. Most of the history was about the 1800s and I was trying to understand the 1700s. I was left with the same questions: What led to their leaving when they did, and why were they so poor? Later, after I got home, I corresponded with one of the local historians who pointed me to a resource that explains the history of migration of the Hebrides. The Isle of Arran shares a migration history that is similar to the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland (https://hebridespeople.com/emigration-from-the-western-isles-in-the-1700s/). Part of the reason for their migration in the 1700s could have been the forces of nature. During the 1700s, six hundred miles to the northwest, in Iceland, three volcanoes – Katla, Hekla and Laki—erupted at the end of cooler climate period known as the Little Ice Age. Katla erupted in 1755. Hekla started erupting in 1766 for two years. In the Highlands and Islands, 1766 was known as the Year of the Black Snow that were followed by two bitterly cold winters. Poor harvests from 1766 through 1771 followed. 1771 was called the Year of the Black Spring. Reports from the early 1770s record emigrants from the Hebrides to Philadelphia who were destitute.

While I have read about the Little Ice Age, it has become something more real to me as I contemplate the possible affects on the pattern of my family’s migration. And the reconstructed temperature graph from this era made it all the more real (Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/climate-change#/media/1/344106/158081.  Access Date December 8, 2024).

When I visited the historical museum I saw Curries in the old photos. I also met a retired man who was volunteering as a guide. His name was Charles Currie and he was from the area of the island associated with the Currie name. He said I looked like a Curry. I will let you decide!