Hi, I can speak to the name question having studied the origin of the Murray, MacMurray, McMurray and McMurry names. Our sept of the Murray family originally was MacMurray. Over time, the enumerators were responsible for modifying the name with, perhaps, a little help from some of our family members. The first big change for the MacMurrays came in County Down, Ulster where most of our large MacMurray families had settled when they left Scotland in 1606. In Ulster the enumerators exclusively used M'Murray, a shorthand version of MacMurray, to spell the name in the muster rolls, first in County Down in 1638 and again in 1648 for all of Ulster. This shorthand eventually resulted in the elimination of the "a" in the "Mac" portion of our name and it became "Mc." Some will argue that the king forced the name change to break up the clans but I think it was just lazy enumerators. Now, even in those early days there were already some M'Murry (i.e., MacMurry) men listed in the muster rolls. So you can argue that the name McMurry was just another sept of the Murray family but I doubt that this would be allowed by the parent family. The final change from McMurray to McMurry, at least for my family, occurred in America. All of my ancestor's brother's, either deliberately or inadvertently, allowed their McMurray name to become McMurry. I don't know why this occurred but it began to happen in the early 1800's while my ancestor and his brothers were in Kentucky (they arrived there from Va., one in 1782 and the other four McMurray men in 1789). My ancestor and all of his descendants were the only members of our large family that maintained and defended (to the death <G>) the spelling of our McMurray name. One of our cousins deliberately changed his name back to MacMurray. Regards, Don Shannon, Pam & Don McMurray The Norris House Inn & Stone House Tea Room (www.norrishouse.com) Thomas Birkby House - A Meeting Place (www.birkbyhouse.com) 108-9 Loudoun St., SW, Leesburg, VA 20175 Tel. NHI: 703.777.1806 E-mail: don@norrishouse.com Tel. TBH: 703.779.2933 E-mail: info@birkbyhouse.com Fax: 703.771.8051 -----Original Message----- From: McMurry [mailto:eagle4@airmail.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 5:47 PM To: MCMURRY-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [McMurry] fw: a Barren Co, KY marriage What do we know about the McMurry spelling? McMurray vs McMurry. Donna ______________________________