Origin of the Greer Name
The commonly accepted origin of the Greer name is that it is derived
from the Clan Gregror - the MacGregors or sons of Gregor. Note there is no
distinction between McGregor and MacGregor, both being anglicised versions
of the Gaelic name.
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The clan descends from Gregorius, or Gregory, of the race of
Alpine, whose son Kenneth MacAlpine was the founder of the Scottish
monarchy.
The flag at the top of the page is the royal standard of Scotland
used to this day by the British Royal family when in Scotland (not
all Scots are thrilled by this use). On the left is the MacGregor
clan crest - a crowned lion, symbol of the monarchy, with a belt
surrounding. The clan motto, in Gaelic "'S Riobhal Mo Dhream" is "My
race is royal". |
The histories of early Scotland are invevitably vague and partial. We
know the MacGregors were notorious for their fierceness in battle and for
the assiduity with which they pursued their enemies. In 1563 their lands
were seized and licences to pursue the MacGregors with "fire and sword"
were granted to Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy. In 1603, the very name
MacGregor was proscribed by an order of the Privy Council. All those who
bore the name were commanded on pain of death to adopt other surnames.
This proscription survived till 1674, when some, but not all, readopted
the MacGregor name.
Many different names were adopted during the proscription, including
Gregor, Greig and Greer, in a variety of spellings. From these derive
today's MacGregors, McGregors, Griersons, Greers and many others. Greers
started emigrating to America in the early 1600's. Greers also moved from
Scotland to Northern Ireland, in many cases descendants moved on to
America. Other Irish Greers moved back to Scotland during the industrial
revolution and in some cases their descendants came to America. Greers are
the classic Scots-Irish that so many in the US are descended from.
My middle name, and my mother's maiden name is McAra, a much less
common name than Greer. It is also connected to MacGregor, since the
McAra's were a sept, or sub clan of MacGregor.I suspect my Greer ancestry
goes back through Glasgow to Ireland and back to Scotland. My McAra
ancestry goes from Glasgow directly to the highlands of Scotland.
Since I came to the US 280 years after the first Greers, any connection
betwen me and most US Greers must be back in Scotland or Ireland. I am in
the process of tracing my ancestry in Scotland and I have posted my Gedcom
files here, as well as a gendex.txt file. Below are some of
the places I have found useful and/or interesting in my research.
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An often forgotten McGregor is Mr. McGregor the gardner from
Tales of Peter Rabbit and his Friends by Beatrice Potter. My
children loved Peter Rabbit and when we read this book, they would
squeal "mean Gregor!" when we got to the part where he chased Peter.
This was not due to an inate understanding of gaelic names, but an
inability to pronouce McGregor. Why did Beatrice Potter picked
the name - perhaps an unfortunate encounter with a McGregor in her
formative years? |
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Sites and lists devoted to Greers
Greer Family
Genealogy Forum - The obvious place to start if you are researching
Greers. You can search among the postings to the forum, as well as post
your own queries.
Grierson World Project
A heroic effort to document the Greer name and all its variations from
787AD to the present day. Well worth a visit.
Laura's Greer
Ancestors go back to 1788 in Virginia with a possible link to John
Greer, born abt 1650 in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. She includes a lot of
miscellaneous Greers including some who fought in the Revolutionary war
and the Civil War.
The Greer Mailing list . - To subscribe to the list, send an
e-mail to: GREER-L-request@rootsweb.com
with SUBSCRIBE in the BODY of the message). The list owner is Pat
McCarthy. E-mail: mailto:pmcarthy@niu.edu .
 Sites
and lists devoted to MacGregors
The Clan Gregor homepage The
starting point for MacGregor research, links to MacGregor societies around
the world, Scottish genealogical and other information.
Children of
the Mist - as the Clan was known when proscribed and disappeared into
the hills. The site of the California Clan Gregor society. The ancient
MacGregor tartan has been faded a bit for use on this site, making a
marginally better background for reading than the previous site. Call me
an old fuddy duddy, but I still prefer white for page backgrounds. Covers
the history in some detail, the facts on Rob Roy (again) and much of the
other usual stuff.
Rob Roy
Thanks to Sir Walter Scott and more recently, Liam Neeson, Rob Roy is the
most well known MacGregor.
Scottish genealogy sites that I have found
useful
Scots Origins - The Scots
Origins database contains fully searchable indexes of the General Register
Office for Scotland, an index to births/baptisms and banns/marriages from
the Old Parish Registers dating from 1553 to 1854, plus the indexes to
births, deaths and marriages from 1855 along with an index to the Census
of 1891. The available records stop 100 years ago (i.e. a further year is
added each year). You have to pay £6 ($10) in advance for 30 pages of
records information that you can gather over 2 days. To retrieve copies of
actual documents (such as a birth or marriage record) is £10 ($16). This
is one of the best genealogical sites on the internet if you have
ancestors from Scotland. You need a starting name and a date for an event
(birth, death or marriage) to search effectively, a place helps a lot.
Don't count on serendipity. A search on a common name (like John Greer)
will generate 50 or more possibiliities over a plus/minus five year
period. So unless you want to spend a lot of money, you need to be precise
on who, when and where before searching here.
Scottish Genealogy LDS Reference
Information - most people interested in genealogy know about the
services of the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS). This site provides
background on how to use LDS Family Research Centers (FRC) and guides on
Scottish information available there.
DIY Genealogy in
Scotland - a professional researcher tells you how to do it, lists
useful books and offers his services if you don't want to do it
yourself.
General genealogy sites
The soundex code for Greer is G660 - use this when you are searching on
any site that offers soundex as choice - that way you don't need to type
in Greir, Grear and so on to cover all the spelling variations. This does
generate a lot of irrelevant stuff (unless your ancestors had very strange
pronunciation), so you have to decide yourself whether you want to wade
through twenty pages one time or run five searches.
Genealogy Exchange & Surname
Registry - a volunteer run, free site, that lets you link up with
other people searching for any surname and also lets you post specific
queries. Useful if you have a specific ancestor, and enough information
about him/her to permit someone else to make a connection. The site also
provides links to volunteers who will do lookups for you in local
libraries and some official records. Very useful.
Genealogy Internet Site
Indices A specialized search engine that only searches genealogy
sites. It didn't turn up much for me, but the concept seems valid and
maybe it will get better over time.
GenServ HOMEPAGE A fee based site
($1 per month) with gedcom files from subscribers. I haven't used this one
yet, but it looks interesting for US based Greers. I suspect there won't
be so much about UK Greers.
USGS Query Form A
wonderful tool, lets you list all the places in the USA with a particular
name (Greer, for example) - it gives state, county, population, zip,
latitude and longitude. Useful for finding the county when you only know
the town and state. There are fourteen towns and one county with Greer in
their name.
Ancestry.com Online
Genealogy A great site with tons of databases. Unfortunately you have
to pay ($60 p.a.) for the good stuff, but you can find out for free what
they have there for the names you are looking for. What it lists isn't
always something they have there - you may see a reference to a family
history book, and they will list the libraries that hold it, but the
actual data you need won't be on the site.
Roots Surname List
- Interactive Search Another site where you post your query and others
see if they can help you, or you browse what's there on the basis that if
you recognize anyone, then the poster may have other information you need.
You need dates and locations to make any use of this.
Treasure Maps the
How-to Genealogy Site A good reference site that is more than a list
of links. Good information on how to use the LDS family centers.
Tuffsearch's
Ancestors' Attic Another guide and link site, but very selective. The
home page could be more informative. I found this site useful for NY
information (the black hole of genealogy).
The Music
If you clicked on the link at the top of the page, you have been
listening to a 2-4 time March medley - Highland Laddie, The Barren Rocks
of Aden and Teribus. Highland Laddie is the first tune many pipers learn,
as I did in the East Kilbride 1st Boys Brigade Pipe Band back in 1962.
Below are a few more tunes I like in the midi format. For a full selection
try Bagpipes at Best.
Depending on your OS and applications, the music may play in different
ways. If Windows Media Player plays .mid files, then it will open and you
will be able to control the volume and playback separately from Internet
Explorer. If you have a QuickTime plug-in which has taken over the .mid
format, then this page will disappear and a QT control bar will appear. In
this case use the back button then open in a new window (hold the shift
key down when you click). There may be other behaviours as well. I hate
pages that play music automatically, so this is designed to give you
control, unfortunately it also means I can't be sure how it will work for
you.
Lochan Side
- a Retreat, but quite a jaunty tune for that. Come to think of it, I
suppose the message was to step lively in a rearward direction. Scottish
regiments didn't use retreats much, we tend to press on regardless.
The Flowers of the
Forest - a Lament written for the Clansmen who died for Bonny Prince
Charlie at Culloden, April 16, 1746 (amazingly enough, the last battle
fought on British soil). I remember playing this with a pal at the
Cenotaph in East Kilbride on an 11th of November in the mid 60's after the
two minutes of silence, back when the country still stopped at 11am on
11/11 to remember the fallen of two world wars.
Torosay
Castle You don't get the effect from the midi, but this is a favorite
of many bands since it makes such nice use of the limited harmony
achievable with the GHB. You need to hear it in the open air played by six
or more pipers (true of most bagpipe tunes, apart from those that are at
their best with 100 pipers.)
The Mason's
Apron My paternal grandfather was a Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge
in Govan, Glasgow, which may explain why I like this interesting tune.
I'm afraid the midi format and the typical sound card don't add up to a
very accurate representation of the Great Highland Bagpipe (GHB),
especially the grace notes (demi-semi-quavers), but you can use your
imagination.
If you have a reasonably fast web connection and Real Audio player, try
Celtophile
Artists, Here's to the Highlands from Green Linnett Records. (This link
is inevitably less reliable than the midi files, which are on my site.)
Better quality but needing a high speed connection to stream are mp3
format tunes River Bend or Cape Breton
Reel by Barry Shears; visit his website
here.
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