History of my last name

It would not surprise me if the name was not originally spelled Longmoor and that it is a borderland name (on the border between Scotland and England)

Thanks for the quick reply. Interesting. Do you know of any sites that I could use to research further? I was also curious the name Longmuir was also a version of Longmore.

it does sound north country or border - I should think your ancestors lived near or on the moors? Long was sometimes spelt Lang as well so maybe Langmuir as well to research?

You're in luck! I've recently borrowed a book, The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, 2nd ed. You're getting good information... here's the full citation I"ve got:



From that, and having read other parts of this book, I'd say that the name is not from Scotland -- Scottish names in this book say so and report a Gaelic origin -- though it could definitely have come from the borderlands. There are also moors in the southern part of England -- I don't know if any are long. The note about possibly being from long mere is also interesting. There is a common surname, Longmire, meaning long bog, referring to a place in Westmoreland and a Westmoreland surname.

This book frequently refers to an older original work of British surnames called Homes of Family Names in Great Britain, by H. B. Guppy, London 1890, that may give you some interesting information.

Check Google using Longmoor -- I did and found about 1500 entries. I checked one and found this cool bridge... Longmoor Bridge, which is part of the Grantham canal.

(From the website) "This delightful canal runs for 33 miles from its junction of the River Trent at West Bridgford, through the attractive Vale of Belvoir to the market town of Grantham."

Now don't you feel better about your "lame name"?



Grantham Canal Website

interesting idea with google, i googled my family name "Rea" and discovered i come from a long line of Rural Electification Associations

Rea, Mister Smarty-Pants, is also a location name and means at the river/stream. It's OE.

thanks
You guys are awesome! Thanks for the research. I used your idea but tried and image search and came up with a longmore castle in Scotland.

Longmore Castle link (edit by moderator, long link)

I wish there was a way to find out more.

What a gorgeous castle & grounds! I looked but couldn't find out where that castle was located. If you find out, be sure to note it here, OK?
THX

you can find out more but you'll have to put some time and effort into it and really dig,,,libraries, church records, cemeteries, town halls. one of my sister's and I spent hundreds of hours doing our research and family tree this winter and it paid off.
all you need to start looking is a valid birthdate and full name to put the pieces together. i found it was easier to go backwards from present. record keeping in the old days was pretty much all done by hand, not very accurate and spelling errors were more the rule as far as surnames go. a lot of emigrants couldn't spell, read or write.
i only have the irish side genealogy links, my sis has the links for the one Scotsman but i'll pass those on when she replies to my email requesting them. try these links for starters and good luck.

www.rootsweb.com

www.genealogy.com

noquarter, Just want to say hi and welcome. I'm glad you've gotten some good info and help here. Sorry I can't offer any more. I know next to nothing about such things.

Re my own last name, there are somewhere between four and seven people in the US with this name. They are all related to me.

Apologies to noquarter . . .
noquarter - I know you would have come up with this for Piffka. Hope you don't mind that I "just had to have a look" to satisfy my own curiosity. Truly a beautiful castle . . . as is most - if not all - of Scotland. Our favorite place. But then we are Scots, too!
**************************************************************
Olwyn Owen
HISTORIC SCOTLAND
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh EH9 1SH
Scotland
UK Phone: 0131-668-8771
Fax: 0131-668 8765
E-mail: [email protected]

Internet: Historic Scotland HISTORIC SCOTLAND
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh EH9 1SH
Scotland
UK
Phone: +44 131 668 8600
Fax: +44 131 668 8741
***********************************************************
Next post will have the URL for the above info (I hope - if I didn't lose it!)


*********************

HERE IS THE url FOR THE ABOVE INFO:
http://www.hordaland-f.kommune.no/kls/kulturlandskapssenteret/addresses.htm

FOR THE GENEALOGISTS . . .


Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet More than 189,750 links!
187,125 categorized ... Warehouse. Cyndi's List Main Category Index. A ...
Description: Category Index

http://www.cyndislist.com

Longmore House and Longmore Castle are the same? Ahhh, thanks, Charli! Salisbury Place. You're good at finding links & websites, I've noticed.

I feel silly. I did see a reference to this, but thought they were different places.

So Charli, you're Scots? Cool. Have you been to this castle then? Looks gorgeous. I wish you would post on my UK vacation topic... I've made a link below. Have you been to Tain? You could probably give me lots of great tips! It's a long topic, but basically we don't have much time, we'll be mostly driving & we'll be near Inverness & Glencoe, besides Edinburgh.

UK Topic Here

errr -- getting back to Longmore Family stuff. Phoenix once gave us a link to an interactive historical map of the United States, based on the number of people with an individual name and the date. It was from the census & changed every ten years. Totally cool to see the spread of the Smiths and the limited number of Pennimans. You might want to check with her, or maybe she'll come by and re-link it. It was here somewhere on a2k if you wanted to look.

I wonder, Roberta, if you ever saw that? Phoenix posted the link last Spring, I think. It's been a while. You could probably find a little splash of color and know... that's you and yours!

Ah, I have a bit of scots in myself. My father's mother was scotsirish, lived as a young'n by the Georgian Bay in Ontario. And I don't know more, right now.

I have no sense of the right words, indeed, it is only through an insistant friend that I have paid attention to the elders. She is the one who searched on line. Who knew my family landed and might have thrived in NY?

Ah well, I plan to pay serious attention, one of these days.

Hi Piffka, Didn't see the map in question. I did a google search. There may be a few more than originally thought.

I googled my last name, Mesbur, and indeed I am related to all of them. What amazed me was the number of listings for us

I found it, I found it, I found it!!!!

Well, actually a2k has a great search engine. I just typed in Census and got one page of topics... it was right there. (Note: I have my profile set to display 100 posts)

How Many People With Your Surname Live in the US? from Phoenix

Piffka, You are a determined one. Thanks for digging that up. I tried it. My last name is too uncommon and is not listed.

During the google search I ran, I found mentions in Germany, Russia, Italy, and France. My father told me that his family had at one time or another been in all these places. Tres interesting.

I tried the site as well, and again, my last name is too uncommon. No listings.