Brief Life History of Jean
When Jean Weir was born on 3 April 1854, in Old Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, her father, David Weir, was 29 and her mother, Grace Steel, was 32.
Photos and Memories (0)
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Family Time Line
Sources (1)
- Jean Weir, "Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950"
Parents and Siblings
1824–1895 Male
1821–1900 Female
Siblings (14)
1843– Female
1845– Male
1846– Male
1848– Female
1850– Female
+9 More Children
World Events (3)
1857 · Police (Scotland) Act 1857
Age 3
1884
Age 30
1908
Age 54
Name Meaning
Scottish and English: topographic name for someone who lived by a dam or weir on a river, from Middle English, Older Scots wer(e) ‘weir; fish-trap’. Compare Ware and Wear . In northern England and lowland Scotland there has been much confusion with the Irish and Scottish Gaelic names in 2, 4 and 5 below.
Scottish: in Scotland, this surname was sometimes used for Gaelic Mac an Mhaoir ‘son of the steward’, more often Anglicized as McNair .
Scottish (of Norman origin): surname of a family of Blackwood (Lanarkshire), which is said to be descended from Ralph de Ver, a Norman baron associated with William the Lion between 1174 and 1184. The change in pronunciation from Vere to Were would be unusual in Anglo-Norman French, and the true source of the surname may lie elsewhere. One possibility is Wierre in Pas-de-Calais. Another possibility is that the surname may represent versions of the Norman surname de la Were ‘of the war’, a nickname for a warrior; see Warr .
Dictionary of American Family Names © Patrick Hanks 2003, 2006.
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