[muawiyah]

The Williamson clan (as the cops like to call them) are located in different places than the Murphy town Murphies in South Carolina. They have a similar lifestyle ~ and ways of making a living.

They don't tan well.

Now, the McCaffreys and McCafferties ~ ever hear of them? Similar practice but you'll find them more engaged in interstate autotheft, or sometimes actually working for mafia families.

One interesting aspect of the few Travelers I've met (or is that few "hundred") is they all suffer from some serious dental dysplasia replete with spare teeth. That's genetic. Kid who rode to grade school with me (liked to sit by me every day on the way home) had some gold fillings in a couple of his spares.

[Finny]

It's been quite a few years since I did any research on Travelers -- couldn't sell the stories because editors flat out didn't believe them (as you can imagine! You're familiar enough with them to know how unbelievably bizarre they are!) and also wanted more than a few distant law enforcement officers for quotes, and as you no doubt know, Travelers are rarely caught not because LEOs aren't doing their job, but because Travelers are experts at escaping prosecution, so few LEOs will say anything of substance to reporters about them.

Yes, the name McCaffreys, McCafferties, Stuarts, and a whole bunch of other names crop up (I've kept all my research files). I wasn't aware of the auto theft, but I do know that for ALL travelers, LEOs who were serious about getting them understood that the only way they could nail Travelers to any decent effect was by going after them via RICO laws. Might as well try to glue down water as to try to nail a Traveler.

I know that Travelers are NOTHING if not survivors. If they have to adapt their scams to the moment, they will, so the group that was primarily doing home improvement scams in the 90s may well be doing something else now! In that particular Scottish group, I didn't see that dental anomaly you mention. They were fair skinned, but mostly brunettes -- a few redheads and blonds, but mostly brunettes, and not a lot of freckling, which seemed odd. Round moon-shaped faces, ruddy skin. And quite ostentatiously Christian. The women had clean fetishes to the point that they washed their linens DAILY. The proceeds fron the apartment complex's laundry rooms went through the roof.