Hoot: Yes, I am indeed familiar with Mike's work, and the fact that he has addressed this question in the 'Dear Companion' book. Sharp knew quite well that a lot of the ballads had been collected mostly in Scotland, but chose to lump the Lowland Scots together with the English for his own purposes. The Hicks' claim of English ancestry was in Jane Gentry's biography, as I remember.

What I was suggesting is some kind of rigorous analysis of the songs themselves, which might give us some idea of where their UK affinities lie - although of course we must bear in mind cross-fertilization with other communities in North America, and also that the UK record of collecting is itself incomplete and patchy.