R-BY3374 represents a people who were descendants of the Iron Age Pretanī (R-L21) who likely settled along the southern coast of what is today known as England, and then branched further into Britain. As those of an Iron Age Briton tribe/Celtic Britons, they also likely spoke Common Brittonic, an Insular Celtic language that was a forerunner of Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish, and Breton. 

Though there is speculation that the surname Mure/Muir may have etymological roots in a lineage that predates the 12th century AD (about the time when surname use in Scotland appears), there is no primary source material to sustain it. 

Further, there is no evidence of an “ancient” “Clan Muir” (details follow, below). A revised framing of this title is used in these pages to illustrate what is probably a more accurate history… or at least brings us as close as we can… with primary sources and the science of Y DNA. Instead, it appears here as “Clan” Muir, to draw a line that we can acknowledge  between myth and that which history actually tells us. This does not minimize the role of the Muir lines in history, since arriving in Southwest Scotland, probably sometime after 1070 AD. Rather, the reference to “clan”, in spirit, joins us together as a community, especially with clear identity and connection through Y DNA. 

Further, this “clan”/community isn't merely focused on one surname. Thanks to Y DNA results, we are aware that while we all share an ancestor in a man or small group of men who held a surname etymologically close to Muir (possibly Mor), ca. 1200 AD, a variety of NPE surnames reach back over approximately 875 years.

The following is a timeline beginning with haplogroup R-CTS3655:

R-CTS3655 (emerged ca. 1650 BCE) - Bronze Age Europe

Believed to have emerged on the main European continent, CTS3655 has test-takers noting origins in a broad area, to include Germany, France, England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Particularly interesting identified to one of the CTS3655 subclades (R-CTS365>Z16539) was a tooth (sample I16611, dating to ca. 401-206 BCE/Iron Age Britain) found at a larger burial site at Suddern Farm, Hampshire County, England, less than five miles from the Iron Age hill fort at Danebury (founded ca. 550 BC, abandoned ca. 100 BC).

R-L627 (emerged ca. 1300 BCE) - Bronze Age Britain

Difficult to pinpoint location at the emergence of R-L627. Additionally,  there is a large gap in time between the emergence of R-L627 and the emergence of R-BY3364. Kits that have tested to R-L627 but not branched to BY3364 have no detailed trees that establish certain origins in the UK. Surnames of kit owners who tested R-L627>FGC3911, but negative for R-BY3364, include Cooper, Murdock, Reynolds, and Rice.

R-BY3364 (emerged ca. 450 AD) - Post-Roman Britons

Current Y DNA results for kits that test positive for BY3364 (or are predicted to be BY3364+ if upgraded), but negative for BY3368 and BY3374, represent surnames (Bassett, Bostick, Chesser, Harding) that have traceable lines and/or historical roots in what is now the area in and near Cheshire, England.

R-BY3368 (emerged ca. 950 AD) - Middle Ages

Current Y DNA results for a kit that tested positive for BY3368 (or are predicted to be BY3368+ if upgraded), but negative for BY3374, represent a surname (Agar - haplogroup FTB90017, which emerged ca. 1050 AD) that has traceable lines to what is now the area Yorkshire, England. However, two other branches if BY3368 (but not BY3374) are in test-takers with the surnames Ardrey/Ardery and Brown, which have traceable trees to SW Scotland. Given the Agar test and these two others, this may suggest a break in the BY3368 line sometime after it emerged ca. 950 AD. This may have a connection to the stories of different families from Yorkshire who took refuge in Scotland following William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North, in 1069-1070. Upgrades to tests are necessary to provide more data.

R-BY3374 (emerged ca. 1200 AD) - Kingdom of Scotland 

Given the multiple results of kits to test to BY3374 and its subclades, and given the estimated age of BY3374, it has been concluded that this haplogroup most definitely represents the progenitor of the Mor/Mure/Muir lines that are rooted in Ayr, Scotland (and later branched out in various portions of Scotland and Northern Ireland, before migrating to many places throughout the world). Of the currently identified subclades of BY3374, the Muir/Moore surname is represented in branching in ca. 1200, 1300, 1350, and 1400. Further, this aligns well with the first documented Mor in Scottish history in David Mor/de Mor, who is believed to be shown as witness to a charter of Alexander II", between 1214 and 1249, and was presumably the father of Sir Gilcrist Mure who, for his role in the Battle of Largs, in 1263, was granted the estate of Rowallan. 
 

Other Surnames

There are a number of surnames other than Muir/Moore, under BY3374, represented among test-takers, and they all appear to be NPE lines (adopted, illegitimate, etc.). The largest groupings that stand out as probable NPE lines from Mure/Muir while still in Scotland include:

Alexander, NPE ca. 1350

Blackwood, NPE ca. 1700

Harshaw, NPE ca. 1600

Lusk, NPE ca. 1550

McMuldroch, NPE ca. 1400

Montgomery, NPE ca. 1600

Pollock, NPE ca. 1300

Pringle, NPE ca. 1700

Walker, NPE ca. 1700

Young, NPE ca. 1650

Surname Origins 

The surname Mure/Muir supposedly originated as denoting someone who lived beside a moor. The name is derived from the Scots form of the Middle English "more", meaning "moor" or "fen". Given that research findings in Y DNA for the Muirs suggests they may have been in the area of Cheshire and Yorkshire between, at least, 450-950 AD/CE, it raises the possibility that the surname may have been associated with moors of Yorkshire, well before the arrival of this line in Southwest Scotland. However, there are no references to any surnames etymologically close mentioned in references to the areas of Cheshire and Yorkshire in the Domesday Book. Further, there are moors in the area in which the Mure/Muir line is first identified in Scottish records, including Eaglesham Moor, which is a short distance from Polkelly and Rowallan.

Some have posited that the Muirs of Southwest Scotland were of Irish origin, even making an unsubstantiated claim of ties to Fergus Mór, of the Dál Riata from Ireland. However, a significant number of Y DNA results clearly demonstrate the Mure/Muir/Moore lines of southwest Scotland had no genetic affiliation with Ireland until the Ulster Plantation in the 17th century. Nor do these test-takers have evidence of their Y DNA being tied to Dál Riata or the Gaels.

That being said, the Mure/Muir line of Southwest Scotland is genetically of Pretani/Brythonic origin, it appears, not arriving in Southwest Scotland (possibly from the area of the former Kingdom of Elmet, near what is now West Yorkshire, England) until the latter part of the 11th century.

A Claim to Clan Muir? Is it a Legitimate clan?

The claim is that Clan Muir is a Scottish clan that is armigerous (it has no chief recognized by the Court of the Lord Lyon). While some members of Clan Muir claim it as an independent clan rooted in Ayrshire and the surrounding area, some, in Ayrshire, are believed to be of a sept of Clan Boyd. Furthermore, Clan Muir is, in fact, per the Lord Lyon Court, an officially registered clan.

This being said, and despite an effort made by several, in more recent years, to suggest Clan Muir is an ancient clan... in fact, it may be a mid-to-late 19th or 20th century creation (if anyone has primary source material to the contrary, that shows the phrase "Clan Muir" prior to the 19th century, please let us know). If the concept of a "Clan" Muir came about in the 19th century, it may have done so solely as part of a revival of Scots nationalism in the wake of the visit to Scotland of King George IV, in 1822; was, in part, courtesy of that same sense of nationalism revived in the written works of Sir Walter Scott; and was developed around the history of the Mure/Muir lines of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. However, there is no record, or "history" of the supposed clan, documented to any primary resources, prior to the 20th century. Further, as Lowland Scots, it's highly unlikely that such a clan existed prior to the 19th century. To quote the wife of a Y DNA Muir cousin of ours, who still lives in Scotland:

"I also bristle at 'Clan Muir' as there never was a Clan Muir. The Lowlanders never organized into clans. Calling Lowland surnames out as clan names is regarded as an American affectation and the tartans have been designed in the last hundred years or so specifically to sell to Americans. Lowlanders didn't have tartans and my husband would happily have the head of anyone who buys one!"

Perhaps the most glaring reality of the matter is that, in his reflections on the Muir line, in Historie and Descent of the House of Rowallane, Sir William Muir (1594-1657) makes no reference, whatsoever, to a clan system for the Muir family. Additionally, while the book was not published until 1825, the written work itself was produced prior to Sir William Muir's death in 1657. There is no written history of the Muir line known to exist prior to the publication of this work. Further, in the second oldest work encompassing a significant amount of material regarding the Mure line from Caldwell, Selections from the Family Papers Preserved at Caldwell (1854), by George Jardine (1754-1827) and William Mure (1799-1860), there is also no reference to the Mure/Muir lines being part of the clan system.

Muir/Mure Crest

The crest adopted (though there is no record of who did so and how the decision was made) is a "A savage head couped Proper". In contemporary renditions on the market, it appears much more like a Viking's head than a Moor's head, which is in conformity with what was stated in Sir William Mure's Historie. See The Moor's Head on the Crest, below.

Muir/Mure Motto

The Clan Muir motto is said to be "Durum patientia frango", which, interestingly, is very close to the motto attributed to the Mure line of Caldwell, Renfrewshire, which is "Duris non frangor". Though the Mure line of Caldwell descends from the Mures of Rowallan, there is no motto listed for the Mures of Rowallan.

Muir Tartan

The Muir tartan, is, in fact, registered as the "Muir/Moore tartan", with no mention of it being associated with a "clan". It has the traditional blue - black - green base, but with an unusual motif of three narrow red stripes appearing twice on the green square. A similar device is seen in the Cochrane tartan. The threadcount of this illustration comes from a sample in the collection of John MacGregor Hastie, who collected tartans between 1930 and 1950, and whose work formed the basis of the archive at the Scottish Tartans Society. The tartan was documented in John Ross's, Land of the Scottish Gael (1930). Samples in Scottish Tartans Authority Dalgety Collection. Per the Scottish Register of Tartans (2009) , the date of this tartan is 1 Jan 1880.

A Muir/Mure/Moore Coat of Arms

The earliest known coat of arms used by Sir Gilcrist Muir/Mure, is documented. In fact, his particular CoA is blended, with that of the Comyn CoA (since he married a Comyn). Per Sir William Mure (1594-1657):

"...two coats in one scutshion quarterly, To witt the first quarter Argent a fesse parting equallie the field, Azure, Chargd with thrie stars, Or, The second Azure Chargd with thrie garbs, Or, marshalled two above one, the third as the second, the fourth as the first."

After that, however, there are multiple coats of arm for Moores, often bearing some of the same symbology, though they were not always genealogically connected. Claiming a particular coat of arms is difficult in the Muir/Moore lines, as you must make a clear, documented connection. Per the College of Arms:

"Coats of arms belong to individuals. For any person to have a right to a coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past."


The Moor's Head on the Crest

Some have suggested that a Moor's head, often seen on different coa's of the Moore line, is indicative of our genetic ancestry in the Moors. Based on a number of facts, this is untrue.

First, as can be seen throughout these pages, the Y DNA clearly shows that the Muir/Mure/Moore lines which emerged in the area in and around Ayrshire, in the 11th century, had ethnic origins that were quite different, and were most certainly not descendants of the Moors. Second, for his participation with Sir James Douglas and company, in the campaign against the Moors, in 1330 (concluding with the battle of Teba), Sir Kenneth de More/Moir/Muir, supposed grandson or nephew of Ranald de la More/Reginald de Mure, is said to have received a distinctive addition to his armorial bearing... "Below the helmet are three Moor heads in their gore cut proper with blood dripping arranged in a perfect triangle. To draw away attention from the triangular symmetry and to the answer the question why three over the centuries arose the saying, 'one Christian Moir slew three pagan Moors.'" It would seem that, eventually, the symbology was reduced to one head in other Muir/Mure/Moore arms (interestingly, another topic of conversation, as they were not genetic kin) which adopted the Moor head in their crest. Yet, in Historie and Descent of the House of Rowallane, there is a footnote, attributed to a resource held at Rowallan, dating to 1377, and also appearing in the Genealogy Tree of Rowallan, dated 1597, which states (roughly interpreted from the original Latin):

"This Gilchrist Moir for his reward of valiant service to King Alexander (III) at the battle of the Largs, in the year 1263; obtained the heretrix of Rowallane (Rowallan being passed from his wife to him, at the generosity of King Alexander III) and, entitlement to bear his arms with the bludy heid..."

Despite the note in Mure's Historie, and curiously, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales shows no crest for the Mure line of Rowallan, but shows the "Saracen's Head" being used in the crest of the Mure line of Caldwell, Renfrewshire. 

So, essentially, sometime prior to his death, ca. 1280, the "bloody head" was part of the arms of Sir Gilchrist Muir, but it was not a Moor's head, but, rather, a Viking head, representing noteworthy service to Alexander III, against the Vikings, at the Largs. Indeed, though "Clan Muir" was a commemorative entity (sometime well after the Sir Walter Scott Clan "craze") until the 19th or 20th century, it did adopt a "A savage head couped Proper", which, in contemporary images, looks much more like a Viking's head than a Moor's head.

Muir/Mure Castles

The Muir/Mure lines of Ayrshire have had history in measurable years, associated with a number of castles and or estates, most especially, Polkelly, Rowallan, Caldwell, Rueberry, Cassencarie, Torhouse, and Cloncaird. More information forthcoming.


Different and unrelated Moore Y DNA

There is a misconception with some that all Moore lines are related. in fact, as early as the esrly 1600s, Sir William Mure of Rowallan suggested this of lines in Scotland, Ireland, and England. Yet, Y DNA has proven this not all all true. For further information, see the Moore (and variations) Y DNA Project.