We had hoped to wait until we got more of the American Greer genealogy in print before we presented any information on the Scotch and Irish parts of our Greer family.  We have copied much information from libraries in Edinburgh and Dumphries on the McGregor, Grierson, Grier and Greer families.  We are decoding much of the handwriting of some of this information, as time permits, but we thought we would give the readers of The Greer International Newsletter some background information about the probable ancestry of the Greers in Scotland at this time.

 The first problem is that no proof has been given, that we have seen, that that the immigrant, James Greer, was the son of Sir James Grier of Dumphries area of Scotland.  There is a long standing tradition that he was a son of Sir James.  H. W. F. Hunter - Arundell, Esq. of Barjarg Tower, Dunfrieshire, compiled many genealogies of families of the Dumfrieshire, Scotland area in the the 1820's, mostly from early genealogies given to him by people living at that time.  His papers are housed at the Ewart Library at Dumphries, Scotland, and I feel I was the first to have them brought up from the basement for viewing in thirty or more years.  According to Hunter - Arundell, Sir James Grier had a son, James, who went to Edinburgh, where he became a surgeon and died unmarried.  I personally find this very suspicious, as this same information is given for one or two other Griers in these records.  I feel that the person giving the records to Hunter - Arundell did not know what became of the son, James, and this was a standard answer, as a person in the United States might say someone "went west."  Looking at James Greer, the immigrant, from the United States side, the story that James was the son of Sir James originated, seems to have originated in the D. C., 22 Apr., 1961, as given in A DICTIONARY OF SCOTTISH EMIGRANTS TO THE USA by Donald Whyte, 1972.  (I cannot put my fingers on what D. C. stands for, but it was a compendium of genealogies, I believe.)  So, at this point, we are assuming that our immigrant, James Greer, was a son of Sir James Grier.

 There is a similar problem with the Grierson and McGregor families.  Sir James Grier changed his name from Grierson, which had been used in the Dumphries area for this family since the early 1400's.  It is believed, with no real proof, that Gilbert Grierson, who first used the Grierson name, was a son of Malcom Dominus McGregor, Lord McGregor.  Malcom was strongly attached to Robert de Bruce and fought at Brannockburn in 1317 and died at an advanced age in 1374.  Of course, Malcom can be traced back to Alpin, King of the Scots.  The Clan Gregor Society did not, according its history, The Clan Gregor written in 1898 by Amelia Georgiana Murray MacGregor, allow the Grierson line to be allowed in the Society, as no proof could be shown as to their connection with the McGregors.  However, now the Society does allow Greer, Grier and Grierson family members into their group as a sept at this time.