My family name is Armstrong, which can be traced back to a Siward Fairbairn (or Fair Beorn, meaning white bear)of the Strong Arm, born 995, a Viking , son of a Danish King, who came to England (or may have been born in England) and earned the title of Earl of Northumbria from Edward the Confessor.
Siward’s sister was married to Duncan, King of Scotland from 1034-1040 and he fought against Macbeth (he’s even a character in Shakespeare’s play) to help his nephew, Malcolm III, win back the throne. He had two son’s, Osberne and Waltheof. Waltheof had no male heir, but his daughter, Matilda, married King David I, son of King Malcolm III, and the present day royalty of England and Scotland are descended from Matilda.
Siward’s oldest son Osberne had a son named Siward Barn the White who fought with Malcolm III against Edward the Conqueror. Legend has it that Siward rescued Malcolm during a battle when Malocolm’s horse was killed under him, by lifting him with one arm and carrying him to safety. Malcolm knighted Siward, gave him the name Armstrong and granted him land along the border with England in the area of Liddesdale. Thus was born the Armstrong Clan, which became one of the greatest of the Border Clans of Scotland.
The border lands were in a constant state of war which made it nearly impossible for the inhabitants to rely on farming for their subsistence, so most of tem took to thievery. By the 1400's the practice of reiving, or stealing livestock, had become commonplace along the borders and the Armstrongs were professional reivers. Here is an interesting story about the Armstrongs I found searching the internet:
Ha!
Quote: The Story of Carey's Cows.
Sir Richard Carey, the Warden of the English West March, after many abortive attempts to subdue the Armstrongs, decided on a determined plan to rid Liddesdale, once and for all, of the reiving activities of this tiresome clan.
1. He entered Liddesdale with a strong force, and, as expected. the reivers withdrew, with their families and belongings into Tarras Moss.
Carey deployed his men at all the known exits to the Moss ensuring that no one could possible get in or out without his knowledge.
He awaited events.
He waited a long time and his provisions were getting low and he found it impossible to purchase meat locally as all livestock had suddenly disappeared.
After a while, when his stocks were dangerously low, and Carey was beginning to fear that he would have to call off the siege, he was approached by some friendly locals and offered a fine beast to purchase. He gratefully accepted and asked for more to feed his men, and he got them.
Carey was quite unaware that a body of Armstrongs, had left their refuge without difficulty, and made their way south to Carey's home in England. Carey's livestock, being relatively unguarded, the Armstrongs had no difficulty in driving north a choice selection of Carey's fine beasts.
When Carey found out that he had been purchasing his own cattle, he was not amused.
Acutely embarrassed, Carey called off the siege and went home.
In 1503 Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie was treacherously executed by the young King James V in an effort to bring law and order to the borderlands. What he achieved, however, was another 100 years of bloody lawlessness. In 1603 James VI bacame King James I of England and set out to bring peace to borderlands once and for all. He did this by declaring the border clans outlaws and killing or driving most of them out of there homelands. The last chief of the Armstrong Clan was executed in 1611.
I was never sure if I was descended from these same Armstrongs that lived in the borderlands of Scotland. Being a descriptive name, I would assume that Armstrong cropped up in other places besides this one area of Scotland. However, after doing some fairly easy research on the internet I was able to trace my family name in a direct line from father to son back thirteen generations to a William Armstrong, born 1565 in Gilnockie Scotland. While this is not definite proof, it is a pretty good indication that I am descended from the original Armstrongs.
Here is a good website that I used to find some of this information:
Genealogy.com
I was also able to trace my paternal grandmother, Pearl Moretz, back 9 generations to the first person of that family’s name. Christian Moritz, born in Saxony Germany, came to America sometime in the mid 1700's. His son John purchased land in Watauga County, North Carolina in the late 1700's. The clerk who registered the deed for the land wrote the name down as Moretz. John apparently thought this was the Anglaconized spelling of the name, so he took as his name from then on. His grandson, John Moretz, fathered an astonishing 25 children by two wives.
I’ve had little luck on my mother’s side of the family. She is from Germany, but her family left Germany and moved to Austria before the outbreak of WWII, so she never knew much about her family. She was born in Pössneck Germany to Elizabeth Meissner and Rudolf Ploberger. I don’t know anything beyond her grandfathers Kurt Meissner and Rudolf Ploberger.