text: >"on account of the persecution of the Christian religion in Scotland at that time by the Roman Catholics". That's quite an interesting line. By that point in time, Scotland had been through the Reformation and Catholicism had been made illegal. Estimates say only about 3-10% of Scotland was Catholic by then, they held no power within the country. Were your ancestors Highlanders/Islanders by any chance? They were the areas that had held onto the old religion for longer.