…with doing random genealogical searches on part of my family history. Not really sure why, just decided to start poking around one day.
I need to get all the details from my father, who has a real genealogical tracing of his mother’s family, the Lyons family. Here’s the somewhat cool skinny on the family…
Originally French, Edgar de Leon moved into Scotland in the 11th Century to oppose his uncle Donald Bane. Successful, he was awarded lands in an area called Perthshire, which would later become named Glen Lyon. The family dwelt here for some centuries, until in 1372 Sir John Lyon (called The White Lyon because of his complexion) was given the thanage of Glamis by Robert II, and was so highly regarded that he married the Princess Joanna thus making the Lyon family a royal one. The family has descended from them.
Interesting facts about the family:
- They were a Sept of the Clan Farquharson.
- They called the Castle Glamis home.
- The Castle Glamis is the setting for Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
- One of them, Janet Douglas nee Lady Glamis, was burned at the stake on the castle hill at Edinburgh on 3 December 1540.
- In 1606 the Ninth Lord Glamis became the Earl of Kinghorne, Viscount Lyon and Baron Glamis.
- In 1677 the third Earl of Kinghorne obtained a new patent of nobility, being styled thereafter Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne Viscount Lyon, Baron Glamis, Tannadyce, Sidlaw and Strathdichtie.
- In 1775 Matthew Lyon and his wife Mary landed on the shores of North Carolina.
- Who is the youngest daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore? You guessed it…HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Glamis was her childhood home.
