There is evidence in the early shape note hymnals, sometimes the tune associated with particular ballads can be found, sometimes the form of the hymn parallels that of a ballad and the association is clear. See the work of George Pullen Jackson and Don Yoder, especially George Pullen Jackson: White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (New York, Dover Publications, 1965)where chapter 15 gives a list of such correspondences. However, the earliest of these hymn books is of about 1815 (though there are arguments for assuming that some were printed previously) - this is too late for the first wave of Scotch-Irish though the areas in which they circulated coincide mainly with those of greated S-I influence.