After 5 years, you've probably found the answer
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In reply to:
Leiper. What are my roots ?
8/01/00
If not, I might suggest that your particular line probably originated in the Rhine River Valley.In 1702 Louis XIV invaded the area, intending to eliminate the Protestants.The difference between whether you were a French Huegenot or a Palatine likely depended on which side of the mountain you were on. King Louis' men burned crops and dwellings, killed livestock and inhabitants, and ravaged the countryside.This was followed by the worse winter in the area in then known history.
About that time, William Penn applied for permission to settle Pennsylvania.He posted flyers in the area offering free passage and land to those willing to leave their homeland.Instead of the expected few hundred, some 15,000 arrived in a matter of some six weeks or so.They first made their way to the Netherlands, where they clamored onto ships.First accommodated were those who were able to pay their own passage.Boatload after boatload of poor immigrants descended on Great Britain.Many were sleeping in the streets.Queen Ann, who was from the Rhine River area, opened up apartments and warehouses to accommodate them.
Daniel DeFoe ["Robinson Crusoe"] organized a relief effort, and wrote a treatise, "Pity the Poor Palatine Immigrants", which I understand was widely published at the time.His book "Moll Flanders" was written to elicit sympathy for their plight.
Some were sent to Northern Ireland to dilute the Catholic influence there, as one person stated.Others were sent to Barbados to work in the sugar cane fields, and some did settle in "The New World", in Pennsylvania.Among them was the Roosevelt family [two USA presidents].
Those sent to Northern Ireland had little but the clothes they were wearing.Many intermarried with the locals, lived peacefully, and today have no idea of their origins.Many, having been through such hardships and surviving through them, were by genetics tough people, "rose to the top" as it were. This conflict continues today.
Whether the Leiper/Leeper/Leper/Leaper/variation families in Scotland were in fact of German origin and removed a century before, I am unable to say.