Editor's note: As a journalist, the most fun stories to write are the ones that hit close to home. While researching an article on early Irish immigration for the March/April issue of American Spirit, the magazine we publish for the Daughters of the American Revolution, I got the chance to learn more about my own Scots-Irish ancestors, who arrived in America during the Colonial era. Intrigued by the bravery of these immigrants and their role in shaping our democracy, I decided to delve a little deeper into my Irish lineage. Here's what I discovered.

Some girls I knew growing up wished for blue eyes or blond hair. I wished for a normal last name. Starting with grade school, my last name, McMackin, always caused me embarrassment. Every year on the first day of school, I would cringe when teachers reached my name in roll call because the same thing always happened. After staring quizzically at the grade book for a few minutes, they would painfully attempt to pronounce my last name, subsequently butchering it. Feeling bad for their awkwardness, I would interrupt halfway through and finish it for them, causing the class to erupt in laughter.

When I complained about this—and the nicknames I endured as a result—to my grandfather, Roland “Mack” McMackin, he set me straight. “McMackin is a name you should be proud of,” he said. He then pulled out printed copies of a family tree and a coat of arms that belonged to my ancestors, which was intriguing enough to make me momentarily forget my name predicament.

I was fascinated to discover how my paternal family had evolved through the centuries. My grandfather had traced our lineage back to Sir Andrew Fraser, a man of Norman French decent whose family had come to Britain with William the Conqueror in 1066, and settled in Scotland. Two of Sir Fraser’s sons, Simon and Kenneth (nicknamed “Kin”), rebelled against his stern rules, and he disinherited both. Kin started his own clan, and his son was called “MacKin,” a Scottish term for the “son of the descendant of Kin.” When the British crushed a Scottish rebellion led by the Duke of Montrose in 1645, the Mackins, who participated in the revolt, fled to Ulster in Northern Ireland, where they became known as the “McMackins.”

My ancestor, James Alexander McMackin Sr. was born in Ireland in 1726, and he and his brothers were the first of their clan to leave the security of their Scots-Irish homeland for the unknown of colonial America. No one in my family knows when or why James Sr. came, but we do know that he soon became “American” in every sense, finding a home on the North Carolina frontier, marrying a girl of German decent, raising eight children and enrolling in the Continental Army in 1776 to fight for America’s independence. When his son and daughter-in-law, James and Elizabeth McMackin Jr., left the Carolinas in 1822 to venture to the wilderness of Tennessee, the 80-year-old traveled with them, helping them establish a farm on the Big Sandy River in Carroll County, Tenn., and living there until his death in 1826.

While little documented information about their lives exists beyond birth, death and marriage dates, I’ve heard relatives tell stories through the years about my Scots-Irish ancestors—their stubborn streak, their tenacity, their kindness to families less fortunate, their love of storytelling and their patriotism. I wonder what their lives were like. How hard was it to leave everything they knew behind for an unfamiliar land? What kind of hopes and dreams must they have had to muster up the courage to do that? I’ll never know the answers, but I like to believe that a little of who I am comes from their legacy—and that makes me proud to wear the McMackin name.

Do you have Irish lineage in your family? Watch for the March/April issue of American Spirit to learn more about the proud tradition of your ancestors in our "Pride of the Irish" feature.

Before joining Hammock, Emily worked as an editor at a newspaper in Decatur, Ala., where she covered the teen and young adult beat and designed weekly sections for Gen-Xers. There she spent most of her time scoping out malls, arcades and the local water park for sources, and writing about everything from breakups to blogging.

Now most days, you’ll find her scouring the Web for business owners to profile for her MyBusiness features. Or she may be spotted lurking around libraries to research American Spirit articles and interviewing everyone from East Coast water-sport devotees to West Coast health-care executives—all without losing her Southern accent.

Storytelling is her strength—one she came by honestly growing up amongst big talkers and colorful characters in the small northern Alabama town of Tuscumbia (birthplace of another writer, Helen Keller). She swept through several small towns pursuing her education, traveling first to Searcy, Ark., where she received her English degree from Harding University and honed her journalistic skills at the same campus newspaper that the infamous Ken Starr wrote for as a freshman.

After a detour at a book publisher in West Monroe, La., Emily headed south again to Tuscaloosa, where she graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Alabama (home of her favorite team, the Crimson Tide, and alma mater of her favorite author, Harper Lee).

Now she’s glad to be a small-town girl in the big city, exploring museums, staking out live music, going salsa dancing and drinking Starbucks anytime she wants.