Avice Burrell was able to trace her ancestry back to 1666, when Thomas McCalmont escaped by boat from Scotland to Northern Ireland, persecuted because he was a Presbyterian and not Anglican. 

From there, Avice's family lived in Antrim and Armagh, Northern Ireland for nearly a hundred years before traveling to Pennsylvania.  Avice eventually made it to Portville, New York. 

The whole story begins in Scotland when the clans of the north began to rebel against their English oppressors and the aristocratic Church of England.  The rural, common folks began to read the Bible for the first time and they wanted a Protestantism (and life) with greater liberty. 

But the Anglicans would not have such rebellion, and war ensued.  Avice's great, great, great, great, great grandfather was a very young Presbyterian minister who hid in the hills of Scotland.  Thomas McCammont (McCalmont?) finally had to leave the country after several of his comrades were killed in the conflict. 

The name McCalmont is common throughout the British Islands, and almost all of the Burrell ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland, and England...who originated from France, Germany, and the Viking invasions.  The Burrell ancestors escaped to America during the mid-1700s.