According to the available figues, there are in the region of five and three quarter million Americans of Scossish heritage - which, as populations stats fanatics will recognise, is more thanthe population of Scotland itself - which therefore of course means that the Scots have a long history of becoming expatriates in this part of the New World.
These days, though, Scotland also has its share of expats from all around the world - and there are some great blogs out there by people who've settled in Scotland - either going to the country for work, or maybe having married a Scottish person and made it their new home.
One such blog is The Wee Familia, which is wrtten by a Californian blogger called Lex who moved to Scotland's biggest city, Glasgow, in 2009 - and it's always interesting to read blogs by people from sunny parts of the world who settle in the UK - what with the amount of rain and the colder temperatures. This blogger though doesn't make much mention of the weather and instead fills us in on a bunch of interesting stuff and shares some photos along the way. Well worth a read - check it out.
And as there are many Americans of Scottish descent, so there are many Canadians with the Scottish DNA too. The blog Endlessly Changing Horizon is the story of a couple from Canada who are slowly workong their way around the world, but it doesn't state whether either of them have Scottish ancestors. The post I've linked to above is really interesting - and states somethign I'm sure many of us feel when we arrive in North America from the UK (and vice versa) - that it's 'a parrallel universe across the pond'. A lot of things are familiar, and a lot of them unfamiliar - making for a bit of a learning curve as an expatriate even if the language is (more or less) the same.