Renfrew Scotland

It came up today in a discussion with my Moore research group that a lady in the 1950's had suggested that our Moore family could be from Renfrew Scotland.  This is VERY iffy!  Kind of like when a friend of a friend recommends something.  But because Mary and I are going to be in Glasgow in April, I decided to put a few things together about this possibility.  My first google search says that Renfrow is 6 miles west of Glasgow, so it is not out of the question to make a quick jaunt to the area.

However, I found absolutely nothing on the trip to Philadelphia to indicate from where our Moore family may have lived before coming to Philadelphia.  The one thing that I know is that James definitely bought into Penn's plan since he bought his lot at the Center Square.  But whether he bought into the plan before he came to these shore or whether he was living in New Castle when Penn landed and became a part of the plan for Philadelphia there I have no idea.  Or even James may have come to these shores after Philadelphia had been laid out and just became a part of the plan at that point.

Below is the copy from a letter that Steve sent me before my trip to Philly that was the reason for this particular post:

Here is a bit more about possible Scots connections because of DNA matches:

I’ve finally had some time to look up my emails with Robert More of Scotland.  They were dated 2008, so quite a lot of time has passed by.  The match was at 12 not 25 as I had previously erroneously stated.

Some quotes from the emails:

“Our common heritage was centered in an area including the SW coast of Scotland up to and including the Glasgow area plus the NE coast of Ireland commonly called Antrim or Ulster.  The whole area was the territory occupied by the Celtic tribe known as the Damnonians.  They were most successful as a tribe in the Clyde valley near Glasgow, with their seat of power being Dumbarton, where a castle still stands today.  They maintained a line of British-Celtic kings for at least a 1000 years, up until the 10th Century.

A wave of Scottish Celtic tribes including Damnonians emigrated south to Wales in the fifth century.  They were the progenitors of much of what we call Welsh today, including genealogies of lines of kings, language, myth and culture.  Since the branch of the Damnonians who became known as the Muirs or Moores have some solid references linking them to the Clyde Valley, it's an easy hypothesis that some of them went south in the migration of the fifth century to what became known as Wales.  So there's one link with Shropshire.

Other links include: 1) Ireland connection; 2) relocation due to social opportunity; 3) turbulence of the reformation and its impact on Scotland in the 17th century leading to the Covenanters and the Jacobite rebellions of the 18th century.”

and

The mystery of the seal comes from a letter dated January 9, 1951 from Mrs. Camilla R. Bardshar of Los Angeles to the Lancaster County Historical Society.   Mrs. Bardshar was descended from Jane Moore & Alexander Bane.

I don’t really know exactly what kind of copy of the will she was examining, but this predated the digital world.  It sounds as though she was able to look at the (or one of the) original versions and from that made a sketch.  I would imagine that she also predated the entrenched bureaucracy that is now in place.  

She wrote: “The armorial seal has a round blob of pinkish or red wax with seal inside, wax broken outside there is a mantle which looks like a three or four leaf clover, from this little information I have made my search and study.”

On another page: “And stranger still – he evidently was eccentric as all Moores, because of the fact, that after his name on Will, he has the Armorial seal of the Moore or Mures of Caldwell, Co. of Renfrew Scotland.  I have only a rough sketch in pencil of this Seal, and after careful study I am sure it is the seal of the Moore and Truton family, but will have to have more proof before I can state definitely,…”