This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Blackburn, Merritt Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/SNE.2ACIB/1215.1.1.1 Message Board Post: I honestly don't know. My great-grandmother was Eleanor Blackburn, born in l8l9, died in l899. She is buried with her husband, John S. Merritt in the Davis City, Iowa cemetary. I have been trying to trace her line back and have even had difficulty proving exactly who her parents were. She and John married in Indiana and migrated to Iowa. Apparently her family was from Kentucky. Before that...well..who knows? There seem to be ooooooooooodles of Blackburns. I love the name. I love how it rolls off my tongue. So I was curious about its origin. It sounds Scottish to me. I was born in Zambia, the child of missionaries. How far down your descendant lines have you worked on Gamaliel?