1 DID YOU know that the first Great Seal of America was designed by an Ulster-Scot? Charles Thompson, from Maghera, Co Londonderry, was Secretary of the American Continental Congress between 1774 and 1789.

1 DID YOU know that the first Great Seal of America was designed by an Ulster-Scot? Charles Thompson, from Maghera, Co Londonderry, was Secretary of the American Continental Congress between 1774 and 1789.

He was also dispatched by the Continental Congress to inform George Washington that he was to be the first American president.

2 Did you know that the start of emigration from Ireland was probably in 1637 when the Eagles Wing boat left Groomsport for America with a party of Ulster-Scots Presbyterians? But after several weeks at sea bad weather forced it to return.

3 Did you know that eight of the 56 signatories of the American Declaration of Independence on July 4 1776 were of Ulster-Scots Presbyterian stock?They were John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress who had family ties in Co Down; William Whipple, whose parents arrived in Maine from the north of Ireland in 1703; Robert Paine, his grandfather came from Dungannon; Thomas McKean, his father came from Ballymoney; Thomas Nelson, his grandfather came from Strabane; Matthew Thornton from Londonderry, he settled in New Hampshire in 1718; George Taylor, son of an Ulster Presbyterian minister and Edward Rutledge, also a son of an Ulster Presbyterian family.

Special mention must be made of John Dunlap, who moved to America from a printing firm in Strabane and had the honour of printing the first copies of the Declaration.

And Colonel John Nixon, whose parents were Ulster-born, delivered the first public reading of the document in Philadelphia on July 8, 1776.

4 Did you know that in Belfast speech today there are probably over 200 Ulster-Scots words in common use which people think are English? - words such as: thole, thrawn, crib, scallion, farl, lug, oxter etc.

5 Did you know that 16 of the 41 American Presidents were Ulster-Scots or had Ulster-Scots ancestry?They are: Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S Grant, Chestor Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton!George W Bush has become the 17th American President with Ulster-Scots connections.

William Jefferson Clinton is a relative of Lucas Cassidy, of Ulster Presbyterian stock, who left Co Fermanagh for America around 1750.

And George W Bush can trace his ancestral roots back to the 18th century Scots-Irish diaspora from Ulster. Mr Bush's ancestor on his mother's side, William Gault, was a first citizen of Tennessee in 1796 and is believed to have been born somewhere in Co Antrim.

6 Did you know that Ulstermen rebelled against the whiskey tax in Pennsylvania 1794 saying, 'It was a man's right to either eat or drink his corn'.

7 Did you know that many of our words such as 'greet' and 'thole', etc can be found in the oldest surviving document written in ancient Gothic about 300AD and housed in the Uppsala Museum, Sweden?8 Did you know that writer Mark Twain and Hollywood film actor James Stewart are just some of the American luminaries who are descended from Ulster-Scots stock?Also included are Vice-President John C Calhoun; poet/playwright Edgar Allen Poe; 19th century farm machine inventor Cyrus McCormick; Pittsburgh banker Andrew Mellon; frontier mountain main Kit Carson; songwriter Stephen Collins Foster, and distinguished American Civil War generals: Ulysses S Grant, 'Stonewall' Jackson; J E B Stuart, Thomas Brinton McClellan, Ambrose Everett Burnside, Irvin McDowell, Daniel Smith Donelson, James Shields, Charles James Halpine and Leonidas Polk.

9 Did you know that the fiddle was first introduced into Ireland from Scotland through its use by the Ulster-Scots?10 Did you know that a Co Donegal man founded the Presbyterian Church in America?The Rev James Makem emigrated from Co Donegal in 1683 and later became Moderator of the first American Presbytery established in 1706.

11 Did you know that nine of the 189 men who died at the famous battle of the Alamo in Texas, March 1836 were born in Ireland, mostly in Ulster?Like the legendary Davy Crockett, many others in this gallant number who fought for the freedom and liberty of Texas, were first, second and third generations of 18th century Ulster-Scots pioneering settlers.

12 Did you know that the Ulster-Scots 'sheugh' or 'sheuch' is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word 'sogh' meaning marsh or soft ground.

13 Did you know that an Ulster-Scot descendent was on the first ever American expedition beyond the Mississippi?William Clark was the Virginian born explorer of an Ulster-Scots family who joined Merryweather Lewis in 1804-06 on the expedition ordered by President Thomas Jefferson. The expedition uncovered soil, climate and plant and animal life that has largely been unknown before.

14 Did you know than an estimated 22 million people living in the USA can claim Ulster-Scots roots. These are the descendents of Ulster-Scots families who moved to America in the 18th century and make up the estimated 44 million Americans who today claim Irish extraction.

15 Did you know that John Knox helped to cause the decline in use of Scots and Ulster-Scots by adopting an English translation of the bible for use in the kirk (church)?16 Did you know that the term 'billie boys' is not a reference to William of Orange? It comes from the Scots word 'billie' meaning a friend or brother, hence 'billie boys' which historically refers to a group of friends, a fraternity or a brotherhood.

17 Did you know that in the American revolutionary war of 1776-79 that Washington's army was made up of Ulstermen? 18th century Ulster-Scots settled mainly on the frontier. They were the group mostly responsible for securing Washington's flank from Indian attack while he fought the British, 40% of his army were Ulstermen.

18 Did you know that the first authoritative book on the lifestyles and cultures of native Indian tribes was written by an Ulster-Scot?Co Antrim-born James Adair was the author of 'History of the American Indians', which was published in London in 1775.

19 Did you know that in the early part of the 17th century in Ulster much education was carried out in Scots? The Government in Dublin Castle employed clerks with knowledge of Scots to handle the correspondence from Ulster.

20 Did you know that the Irish word 'craic' is not in fact Irish, but Ulster-Scots? It first appeared in an Irish language dictionary in 1927 and is derived from the Ulster-Scots word 'crack' or 'crak' and is also used in Scotland and the north of England.

Source: Belfast Telegraph July 05 2008